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“TRIBUTE TO KATHARINE GRAHAM” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the Senate section on pages S7893-S7894 on July 19, 2001.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TRIBUTE TO KATHARINE GRAHAM
Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I rise to speak today to pay tribute to the life and legend of Katharine Graham. It is as if the Washington Monument has fallen. It is as if the lights have gone out at the Smithsonian Institution or the lights have gone out at the Lincoln Memorial. I truly cannot imagine Washington without Kay Graham. She was a Washington institution, a very real person with a remarkable mix of qualities. Much has been said about her grace, her grit, her steel, her great intelligence.
Kay Graham put those qualities into action. She lived an extraordinary life and left an indelible mark on our Nation.
I know the Presiding Officer liked Kay Graham because she took chances. Perhaps one of the greatest chances she took was when she actually took the helm of the Washington Post. Think about it. It was 1963. It was not a time when women did bold things, power things, and they certainly were not on the rung of leadership to be CEOs. She was a woman who had faced an enormous personal tragedy. But as she reflected on where she was, where her family was, and where this newspaper was, she decided to take the helm.
She was initially a reluctant leader, thrown into a leadership position because of the death of her husband. In embracing a leadership position, she set about hiring the very best people and giving them the independence to create one of the greatest newspapers in the world.
She built a Fortune 500 company. And guess what. She became the first woman to head a Fortune 500 company.
There were other firsts for Katharine Graham as well. She was the first director of the Associated Press, the first woman to lead the American Newspaper Publishers Association. I could go through a whole list.
Now we take for granted that women will lead, that women will be in positions of leadership in the private sector and in the public sector. We now enjoy the fact that there are 13 women in the Senate. We have women as university presidents, Governors, and CEOs from dot coms to leaders of the old economy. Yet we cannot forget how hard it was to be the first because for the first and the only, it is also being the first and the lonely.
What Katharine Graham did was involve other people in her life and in her family and in creating that institution.
She was known for probably two great milestones in the history of journalism. She made the courageous decision to print the Pentagon Papers, which gave us this view on the Vietnam war, and then she rigorously pursued the Watergate story.
It is said that men in the highest of power just cringed at the name of Katharine Graham, the Washington Post, Ben Bradlee and the team that he assembled. The highest levels of Government tried to suppress these stories. They used threats. They used intimidations. Katharine Graham did not flinch nor did she falter. The Washington Post and Kay Graham stood firm.
Katharine Graham knew her role was to print the truth, no matter what the impact would be. She truly changed the course of history.
Mrs. Graham's actions reinforced the fact that the freedom of speech cannot be abridged--especially by our own Government.
While she hired gifted and talented reporters and editors, she herself did not take up the pen until 1997 when she wrote a book called her ``Personal History.'' Her autobiography struck a chord even with people who cared nothing about the ways of Washington. In it she had wonderful stories about historic figures. She also showed that she herself was a gifted and talented writer, going on to win the Pulitzer Prize. So much for being a shy, awkward debutante of 40 years before.
What really resonated was the story about a woman who faced crises and confronted them with courage and dignity. I know the Presiding Officer has experienced some of the same. We all cheered when Kay won that Pulitzer Prize because we knew she deserved it and we were proud of her.
I was deeply grateful for a chance she took on me. In 1986 I was running for the U.S. Senate. I was viewed by some as a long shot. The Washington insiders said I did not look the part, and they were not sure that I could act the part. But as history has shown, I got the part. One of the reasons I got the part was because of the endorsement of the Washington Post.
I will be forever grateful to have gotten the Washington Post endorsement in both my primary and the general. Meg Greenfield--the wonderful and special friend, Meg Greenfield--felt that I had the qualities to become the first Democratic woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate in her own right.
I just want to say that Kay Graham, this wonderful blue-blooded lady, welcomed a blue-collar spitfire. And for that I will always be grateful. When I came to the U.S. Senate, I came with her endorsement and her welcome. It is something I treasured in those years as she introduced me to people.
She had me in her home. I had a chance to be at those great parties she had to essentially get started in my own life in Washington. But the story that I want to recall is one that is very special to me in which I participated with her. It was 1987. The late Pamela Harriman was asked to host a lunch at her home for Raisa Gorbachev to introduce her to ``women of distinction.'' Dobrynin had called Mrs. Harriman to host this luncheon. Mrs. Harriman called me. And guess who else was on the list? My colleague, Senator Nancy Kassebaum--there were only two of us in the Senate then--Kay Graham of the Washington Post, Sandra Day O'Connor, at that time the only woman on the Supreme Court, and Dr. Hanna Grey, the president of the University of Chicago.
What an incredible lunch. First of all, we were the talk of Washington, and we were the talk of the world. Raisa was trying to woo America to show that Soviet women were smart and fashionable. And she chose as her venue the Pamela Harriman lunch.
I tried to engage her, in her dissertation on what life was like on the collective farm, as two sociologists. We talked about life and times. But the hit of the lunch was Kay Graham and the way she engaged Raisa Gorbachev. Under Kay Graham's incredible graciousness, courtesy, manners, and charm was one ace investigative reporter. While the rest of us were talking and engaging in intellectual conversation, Mrs. Graham began to engage Mrs. Gorbachev in these kinds of questions: What is it like to be the functional equivalent of the First Lady in the Soviet Union? What was your surprise when you came to power? What do you find it like as in the life of a woman?
I wish you could have heard the late Mrs. Gorbachev's answers. We saw a side of Raisa Gorbachev we didn't know: a woman who saw herself as a scholar, coming to power with a man who had been the head of the Department of Agriculture, that they were changing world history. She was shocked by the number of letters she received, the way the Soviet women had reached out to her, one on one.
We heard that Raisa story because of the way Kay Graham talked to her. It was a very special afternoon. I got to know Mrs. Gorbachev a lot better. Do you know who else I got to know a lot better? Kay Graham. She had world leaders at her feet and at her side. But most of all, she had the gratitude of leaders who knew that at the Washington Post there was a great leader who was willing to meet with other leaders but, no matter what, she said to print the truth and call them the way she saw them.
I am sorry that Kay Graham has been called to glory. God bless her, and may she rest in peace. She has left a legacy that should be a benchmark, a hallmark, and a torch for every other newspaper in America, for all of us who hold leadership, and for we women who are in power. May we be as gracious and as unflinching in our duties as Kay Graham.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Stabenow). Without objection, it is so ordered.
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