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“TRIBUTE TO BILL FORD” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E2025-E2026 on Sept. 26, 2008.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TRIBUTE TO BILL FORD
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HON. JAMES P. McGOVERN
of massachusetts
in the house of representatives
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, on June 1, 2008, a great man passed way--William Patrick Ford, human rights advocate and the brother of martyred Maryknoll Sister, Ita Ford.
I had the privilege of knowing Bill Ford for many, many years. I was honored to call him my friend, but he was also someone who I admired, respected, and looked to as a model of how a man should live his life. Like so many outside of Bill's family, I first came to know Bill because I became active in seeking to bring to justice those in El Salvador responsible for ordering and carrying out the murder of Bill's sister, Maryknoll Sister Ita Ford, and three other American churchwomen in December 1980. Bill was a very skilled lawyer, who worked for an important Wall Street law firm. But he lived his life humbly, fully, and with integrity. He understood in the marrow of his bones the meaning of compassion, justice and mercy.
Every year, Bill would faithfully travel to El Salvador to visit Ita's grave, sometimes alone, and more often in the company of other Ford family members or relatives of another of the murdered churchwomen. On one of those occasions when Bill was making his annual pilgrimage to his sister's grave when I happened to be in El Salvador on congressional work. I asked Bill if I could accompany him on his trip to the remote Chalatanango province where the gravesites of the four churchwomen are located. This was during the middle of the Salvadoran civil war, I might add. It was one of my most memorable days in El Salvador, and I will treasure the memory of our conversation during that long, often anxious, jeep ride.
In December 2005, I joined the families of Sisters Ita Ford, Maura Clark and Dorothy Kazel, and of lay missionary Jean Donovan at events throughout El Salvador commemorating the 25th anniversary of the churchwomen's deaths. Nearly 300 people from around the world came to El Salvador to take part in these reflections, and hundreds more Salvadorans participated. I was honored to walk in the footsteps and recall the lives and contributions of these four remarkable American women. And there, at the emotional center of it all, were the families, and for me, especially Bill and his wife, Mary Ann.
Madam Speaker, Bill passed away in his home, surrounded by his family--Mary Ann and their children William, John, Miriam, Ruth, Elizabeth and Rebecca, and their eight grandchildren. He will be missed, and he will always be remembered and cherished in our memories of him.
William P. Ford, 72, Rights Advocate, Dies
(By Dennis Hevesi)
William P. Ford, a former Wall Street lawyer who spent more than two decades seeking to bring high-ranking military officials to justice after his sister and three other American churchwomen were murdered in El Salvador's civil war in the 1980s, died on Sunday at his home in Montclair, N.J. He was 72.
The cause was esophageal cancer, his son William Ford III said.
Mr. Ford's efforts eventually led to a $54.6 million liability ruling against two former Salvadoran generals in a 2002 civil trial in Florida, where the generals were living after being granted residence by the United States.
Although the ruling was not directly connected to the murders of Mr. Ford's sister and the other women, it resulted largely from his long and tenacious campaign. The federal court jury found Jose Guillermo Garcia, El Salvador's former defense minister, and Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, its former National Guard commander, liable for lasting injuries suffered by three Salvadoran immigrants to the United States who were tortured under the generals' command. ``We pursued the case, with Bill in the lead,'' Michael Posner, president of Human Rights First, said on Monday. ``In an extraordinary way, he went beyond simply grieving the loss of his sister; he became a leading advocate for justice in El Salvador.''
Mr. Ford had been an influential figure in the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, which in 2004 became Human Rights First.
On the night of Dec. 2, 1980, shortly after the start of El Salvador's civil war, Mr. Ford's sister, Ita, a Maryknoll sister; another member of the same order, Maura Clarke; the Ursuline sister Dorothy Kazel; and a lay missionary, Jean Donovan, were abducted, raped and shot to death. The next day, peasants discovered their bodies beside an isolated road and buried them in a common grave. The van they had been driving when they were stopped at a military checkpoint turned up 20 miles away, burned and gutted.
The killings came as the United States was beginning a decade-long, $7 billion aid effort to prevent left-wing guerrillas from coming to power in El Salvador, and the case quickly became the focus of a bitter policy debate about Central America.
``This particular act of barbarism,'' a 1993 State Department report said, ``did more to inflame the debate over El Salvador in the United States than any other single incident.''
In 1984, four national guardsmen were convicted of murder in El Salvador and were sentenced to 30 years in prison. After 17 years of silence, the guardsmen said they had acted after receiving ``orders from above.'' Their admissions were made to a delegation from the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, including Mr. Ford.
For years, Mr. Ford lobbied politicians and made speeches, charging that the Salvadoran government had failed to conduct even a rudimentary investigation into the murders. In 1981, he pressed his case with the American ambassador to El Salvador, Dean Hinton, and the Salvadoran president, Jose poleon Duarte.
Mr. Ford also criticized the Reagan administration. The government, he said, ``is so obsessed with the East-West confrontation that they are willing to tolerate the murder of American citizens in El Salvador.'' The Salvadoran junta had killed more than 30,000 people, he said.
It was an unusual stance for a lawyer who had been on the staff of the New York law firm where Richard M. Nixon and John Mitchell had worked before Mr. Nixon became president and Mr. Mitchell became the attorney general. A year after his sister's murder, Mr. Ford said he had been
``radicalized'' by American support for a government ``which is no more than a group of gangsters in uniform.''
William Patrick Ford was born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, on April 28, 1936, the son of William and Mildred O'Beirne Ford. Besides his son William, Mr. Ford is survived by his wife of 47 years, the former Mary Anne Heyman; another son, John; four daughters, Miriam Ford, Ruth Ford, Elizabeth Ford and Rebecca Ford; a sister, Irene Coriaty; and eight grandchildren.
Mr. Ford graduated from Fordham University in 1960 and earned his law degree at St. John's University in 1966. He was a law clerk to a federal judge and later a founding partner of the law firm Ford Marrin Esposito Witmeyer & Gleser.
Litigating securities and product-liability cases took a back seat for Mr. Ford after that day in 1980. Of the American government, he said a year later, ``You can't take seriously the inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty if at the same time you are sending arms, ammunition, trucks and police equipment to a junta which is murdering its own citizens.''
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: June 4, 2008.
Because of an editing error, an obituary on Tuesday about William P. Ford, who spent decades pursuing justice after his sister and three other American churchwomen were murdered in El Salvador, misidentified the religious order of one of the slain women, Dorothy Kazel. She was an Ursuline sister, not a Maryknoll sister.
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William Patrick Ford Obituary--Maryknoll Sisters, June 3, 2008
Ford--William Patrick, (Bill) beloved husband of Mary Anne, devoted father of Miriam, Bill, Ruth, Elizabeth, Rebecca and John and adored grandfather of Samuel, Thomas and Carolina Marth, Billy, Maggie and Mary Ita Ford, Anna and Alex Esteverena, son of the late William Patrick Ford and Mildred O'Beirne Ford, brother of Irene Coriaty and of the late Ita Ford, Maryknoll missionary. He died in the arms of his family after a courageous 17 month battle with end-stage esophageal cancer. Born on April 28, 1936, he was a graduate of Brooklyn Prep, Fordham University (B.A. 1960) and St. John's University (LLB 1966). Bill married Mary Anne Heyman on Feb. 4, 1961, whose decision to marry him, he later said, made him
``the luckiest man alive.'' He served in the U.S. Army from 1957--1958, and again in 1961. He was a clerk to Federal Court Judge Richard Levet, a founder and senior partner of Ford Marrin Esposito Witmeyer and Gleser, recipient of honorary doctorates from Fordham University, St. John's University , the College of St. Elizabeth and Niagara University and claimed his greatest successes as the births of his six children and eight grandchildren. Bill served as an Essex County Democratic Committeeman. An active member of St. Cassian Church in Upper Montclair, NJ, he was a founding trustee of the North Jersey Inter-Religious Task Force on Central America and a member of the Commission on Justice and Peace for the Archdiocese of Newark. After the December 2, 1980 murder in El Salvador of his sister Ita and her companions, Bill tenaciously sought to bring those directly responsible for the deaths of his sister and her three religious companions to justice. For over 22 years, Bill worked unceasingly to hold those in command positions responsible for the death of his sister and so many Salvadoran victims. His efforts laid the groundwork for the eventual successful prosecution of two Salvadoran generals. His personal courage, integrity and undying love of family are the hallmarks of a life well lived. He will be forever remembered by the quiet kindnesses he did for so many. May his soul rest in peace. Visitation Tuesday, June 3 from 2-4 and 7-9 PM at the Hugh Moriarty Funeral Home, 76 Park Street, Montclair, NJ. Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated Wednesday, June 4 at 10:30 AM at St. Cassian Church, 187 Bellevue Avenue, Upper Montclair, NJ. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Maryknoll Sisters, Box 39, Maryknoll, NY 10545 or Cristo Rey NY High School, 112 East 106 St. NY, NY 10029.
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