E884 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — Extensions of Remarks May 19, 2006 passes, small businesses will be on their own Bush had appeased the Communists on China whose courage is endless, said Abe ‘‘set the as they fight to compete in the global market- and (oh, great!) on Lithuania. ‘‘The president trajectory of my life.’’ Maureen Dowd re- place in the face of rising health care and en- doesn’t differentiate between you and your minded me that her mother had kept letters father,’’ he said. from my father framed in her home until the ergy costs. If the majority’s budget passes, I sputtered that the White House owed me day she died. senior citizens will risk losing the benefits they for five years’ psychotherapy. I’d only just In an era when journalism is have been promised. begun convincing myself I was my own man commoditized, digitized and endlessly tele- Unless we change course, the negative con- in my father’s field, and now I learned that vised, I feel the loss of that passion, drive, sequences of the Republican budget will be The Leader of the Free World could not tell emotion and energy. I also feel regret—not felt by every American. us apart? for sometimes pushing my father away as I It was naı¨ve, of course, to think I could tried to be independent. I know I was right My colleagues, Americans are seeking to to wait until he’d retired as executive editor meet their obligations to their families, their hide that little coincidence of a last name. Dad was not just seen as the embodiment of before joining The Times. communities and to the Nation. We must The Times; he saw himself that way. During But I missed something big. honor their commitment and we should not, the tumultuous year 1968, my father said I I never got to work for Abe. and I cannot walk away from our obligations to could not wear an Army fatigue jacket be- [From washingtonpost.com, May 11, 2006] them. Vote ‘‘no’’ on this irresponsible Repub- cause anti-Vietnam protesters wore them. lican budget, and support the Democratic al- ‘‘When you go out,’’ he said, not for the first NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR A.M. ‘ABE’ ROSENTHAL ternative. or last time, ‘‘you’re representing The Times.’’ I was 12 years old at the time. (By J.Y. Smith) f Still, I tried to walk around as if I were A.M. ‘‘Abe’’ Rosenthal, 84, a Pulitzer Prize- REMEMBERING A.M. ‘ABE’ not really Abe’s son, first at The Associated winning foreign correspondent who became ROSENTHAL Press, where I was a national and foreign chief editor of the New York Times and correspondent for nine years, and then at played a key role in modernizing the Gray The Times. (I even left the middle initial, Lady of American journalism for the new HON. FRANK R. WOLF M., out of my byline because my father’s ini- century, died May 10 at Mount Sinai medical OF VIRGINIA tials were so famous.) center in Manhattan. He had a major stroke I started to get the point that hiding in two weeks ago. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES plain sight was not working when I noticed Mr. Rosenthal’s career at the Times Thursday, May 18, 2006 that I hadn’t received any checks from spanned 55 years, from 1944, when he began WQXR, the Times radio station, for a weekly as a cub reporter, to 1999, when he retired as Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, last week the Na- radio spot. It turns out that WQXR was send- the writer of ‘‘On My Mind,’’ a column on the tion lost a giant in the field of journalism when ing the $70 checks to A. M. Rosenthal, in- op-ed page. When he left the Times, he took A.M. ‘‘Abe’’ Rosenthal passed away at age 84. stead of Andrew Rosenthal. his column to the New York Daily News and He was a Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign cor- I called my father, outraged. He had been continued there until 2004. respondent and executive editor of the New happily cashing the checks. He said he In 2002, President Bush conferred on him York Times. After his days directing the news- hadn’t known why WQXR was paying him, the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, along with Katharine Gra- room were over, he penned the op-ed column, but ‘‘when someone gives me a check, baby, I cash it.’’ ham, the late chairwoman of The Wash- ‘‘On My Mind,’’ for the Times and later the I should have found the whole thing funny, ington Post Co. New York Daily News, a forum from which he but I didn’t. Then about a year later, I got a A passionate, driven man, Mr. Rosenthal championed the cause of freedom and human check for a reprint of my father’s classic 1958 was ruthless in his pursuit of perfection as rights. essay, ‘‘There Is No News From Auschwitz.’’ he saw it and was never entirely satisfied As Nicholas Kristof, who won a Pulitzer I sent him a copy of the check stub with a with his own work or that of others. He was a brilliant and visceral judge of the news. He Prize last month as a Times op-ed columnist, note: ‘‘When someone gives me a check, baby, I cash it.’’ had boundless curiosity about the world. He said at Mr. Rosenthal’s funeral, Abe Rosenthal often viewed it with a sense of outrage—at used his column to make matters like human Dad thought it was hilarious. And I’ve long since realized that I overreacted on the tyranny, at all forms of injustice and exploi- rights violations in China and Sudan ‘‘rec- ‘‘Abe’s kid’’ front. But since my father died, tation, at stupidity, incompetence and ‘‘un- ognizable as issues.’’ I’ve realized something else. fairness.’’ ‘‘Abe fought to cure our blind spots, and it When I read his obituary to my children, His first big break came in 1946, when he got a two-week assignment to cover the worked,’’ Mr. Kristof said. ‘‘He did indeed their amazement at his accomplishments United Nations. He stayed on the beat for was matched by my amazement at how much teach us to see.’’ eight years. His first foreign assignment was I had forgotten, even discounted. Then col- Mr. Speaker, I insert for the RECORD an India, where he was posted in 1954. He later leagues began sharing their experiences of obituary from The Washington Post and an worked in Poland and Japan, but India re- my father. tained a special fascination for him. He once op-ed column by Mr. Rosenthal’s son Andrew, They said what I knew, that he could be traveled 1,500 rugged miles to have a dateline a New York Times deputy editorial page edi- stubborn, unreasonable and prone to anger. tor, remembering Abe Rosenthal. that read ‘‘At the Khyber Pass.’’ But what they held on was how sure he was In 1958, he moved to Poland and the next [From the New York Times, May 17, 2006] in his vision for the paper, how filled with year was expelled by the government for I NEVER WROTE FOR MY FATHER exuberance and a certainty about journalism delving too deeply into its affairs. In 1960, he that he freely bestowed. I received dozens of (By Andrew Rosenthal) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for inter- stories about how he’d shaped a reporter’s national reporting for his dispatches from Funerals have a way of reframing memo- career, how he’d traveled around the world ries. After the burial of my father, A. M. Poland. A story he wrote after visiting the to get a correspondent out of trouble, how site of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz- Rosenthal, who ran The Times for nearly 20 he’d stood up equally to K.G.B. generals and Birkenau in southern Poland has become a years and wrote a column for 13 more, I re- to U.S. officials, how he’d helped young peo- classic of journalism. called the day I met President George H. W. ple become better journalists, how he’d ‘‘The most terrible thing of all, somehow, Bush, not long after I became a White House changed The Times and the newspaper busi- was that at Brzezinka (the Polish name for correspondent. ness. Birkenau) the sun was bright and warm, the I was allowed to sit in on an interview that Jose Lopez, a photographer and photo edi- rows of graceful poplars were lovely to look two of my colleagues, Maureen Dowd and tor, said the first time they met, Abe Rosen- upon and on the grass near the gates chil- Thomas L. Friedman, were doing for a maga- thal told him, ‘‘Always be the hawk; never dren played,’’ he wrote. zine article. The White House told me not to be the blackbird that sits on the wire.’’ ‘‘And so there is no news to report from ask questions, but after a while, Mr. Bush David Sanger said when he’d been a news Auschwitz. There is merely the compulsion said to me, ‘‘You’ve been quiet.’’ I said the clerk laboring to become a reporter, he’d to write something about it, a compulsion interview was supposed to be strictly about come to his desk one day to find Champagne that grows out of a restless feeling that to the magazine article, but as long as he’d and a note: ‘‘For an explanation, see the ex- have visited Auschwitz and then turned away asked, what did he think about the latest de- ecutive editor.’’ Abe had promoted David, without having said or written anything velopment on Lithuania? and wanted to celebrate with him. would be a most grievous act of discourtesy He was angry and would not answer. He ‘‘I wouldn’t argue that he was always the to those who died there.’’ said he was ‘‘not gonna be sandbagged in the easiest boss,’’ David wrote. But, he said, my In 1963, Mr. Rosenthal was summoned to Oval Office.’’ father ‘‘knew how to infuse you with his New York from Tokyo to become metropoli- On the way out, Marlin Fitzwater, Mr. sheer joy of reporting and experiencing the tan editor. By 1969, he had become managing Bush’s spokesman, helpfully noted that my world.’’ editor, and in 1977 he was named executive introduction to Mr. Bush had gone badly. He Alan Cowell recalled how Abe Rosenthal editor. For 17 years, until 1987, when he be- explained that Mr. Bush was unhappy with flew to South Africa in 1986 to argue the au- came an op-ed columnist, he was responsible my father for writing in his column that Mr. thorities out of expelling him. John Burns, for the news operation at the Times.

VerDate Mar 15 2010 17:18 Jun 23, 2011 Jkt 099060 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 0626 Sfmt 0634 E:\ERIC\E19MY6.REC E19MY6 gechino on DSK3YST671PROD with REMARKS CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — Extensions of Remarks E885 (The editorial page at the Times and at doing and how he chose to end it. There were Survivors include his wife of 18 years, the some other papers, including The Wash- other ways he could have ended it—he could writer Shirley Lord Rosenthal, who lives in ington Post, is run by an entirely separate have quit!’’ Manhattan; three sons from his first mar- hierarchy that reports directly to the pub- In 1971, Mr. Rosenthal played an important riage, Jonathan Rosenthal of Clifton, Daniel lisher. It is a distinction that remains ex- role in the Times’s publication of the Pen- Rosenthal of Milford, N.J., and Andrew tremely important to papers where the divi- tagon Papers, a landmark event in the his- Rosenthal, a New York Times deputy edi- sion is maintained.) tory of journalism. The papers detailed 25 torial page editor who lives in Montclair, As a manager, Mr. Rosenthal was said to years of U.S. involvement and deception in N.J.; a sister; and four grandchildren. be abrasive and self-centered. A diminutive, Vietnam. The archive of several thousand f bespectacled figure, he had a volcanic tem- pages was classified as secret, and the man- per. Many found him intimidating. He ad- agement of the Times expected the govern- UTB’S GRAVITATIONAL WAVE vanced the careers of many journalists and ment to object to the project. DISCOVERY derailed the careers of others. He was a con- Mr. Rosenthal, by then the managing edi- stant source of friction and controversy in tor, put his credibility and career on the line the Times newsroom. Admirers and critics by marshaling the arguments to go ahead HON. SOLOMON P. ORTIZ spoke of him with equal fervor. anyway. He was supported by then-publisher OF TEXAS Arthur Gelb, a friend of Mr. Rosenthal’s Arthur Ochs Sulzberger. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES who also was the Times’s managing editor, On the second day of a planned multipart once offered this explanation of the Rosen- series, the Justice Department went to court Thursday, May 18, 2006 thal character: ‘‘In every field, in every art, to block publication. There followed two Mr. ORTIZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to if you talk to an artist who has a very keen weeks of frantic litigation in courts in New share with the House a monumental discovery mind, you will find they are very restless. York and Washington and an expedited ap- made by scientists in my district that will make peal to the U.S. Supreme Court, in which the Anyone who is truly creative has a restless- it easier for space scientists to map black ness and natural impatience with others.’’ Times was joined by The Washington Post. There was never any question about Mr. In the end, a divided court affirmed the First holes in space. This breathaking discovery on Rosenthal’s impact on the Times. He insisted Amendment right of the newspapers to bring gravitational waves was made by researchers on good writing and sent his reporters on the information to their readers. at the University of Texas at Brownsville, and stories that often were ignored by other pub- Mr. Rosenthal regarded his greatest con- allows scientists—for the first time—to study lications—and might have been missed by tribution to the Times as his effort to keep the warping of space and time produced by the Times except for his guidance. the news report ‘‘straight.’’ By that he colliding black holes. He expanded coverage in every direction. meant free of bias and editorializing on the Now, I’m no rocket scientist—but UTB’s The religion page, for example, became a part of reporters. venue for discussion of broad theological and ‘‘I used to tell new reporters: The Times is gravitational wave studies universal break- philosophical questions rather than a sum- far more flexible in writing styles than you through will give researchers and other space mary of sermons. might think, so don’t button up your vest scientists greater insight into one of the most Reader-friendly stories and features were and go all stiff on us,’’ he wrote in his fare- cataclysmic astrophysical events predicted by added and given prominent display. New em- well column for the Times. ‘‘But when it Einstein’s theory of general relativity, the phasis was placed on covering sports and the comes to the foundation—fairness—don’t merger of two black holes. Given that most of city itself. The daily paper went from two fool around with it, or we will come down on us are not scientists, let me just say that this sections to four. The business report became you.’’ remarkable discovery will guide astrophysicists a separate section. SportsMonday, Weekend Mr. Rosenthal gave up the executive edi- and Science Times sections were published torship of the Times at the end of 1986 and as they learn more about the origin and his- on different days of the week. Coverage of was succeeded by Max Frankel. His first col- tory of the supermassive black holes which re- topics such as food and the arts was ex- umn on the op-ed page appeared Jan. 6, 1987. side at the core of most galaxies, including our panded. His last column for the paper was published own Milky Way. At a time when many newspapers in New Nov. 5, 1999. Black hole merger models are always chal- York and elsewhere in the country were los- As a columnist, Mr. Rosenthal’s subjects lenging to build due to their unique and un- ing readers, the Times’s circulation in- ranged from the evils of the drug trade— known nature. Black holes in space are re- ‘‘helping make criminals and destroying creased and its financial health improved gions where gravity is so intense that nothing, dramatically, due to its expanding national young minds’’—to all forms of political, eth- and regional editions. nic and religious repression, from China and including light itself, can evade their pull. Be- Notable stories that Mr. Rosenthal as- Tibet to Africa, Europe and the Americas. He cause their mergers generate a remarkably signed included the case of Kitty Genovese, had a special interest in the security of strong burst of gravitational waves when they who was fatally stabbed in her quiet Queens Israel and made regular visits to the coun- approach and collide, lasting for years at a neighborhood. What had started as a brief try. time, they affect both space and time by pro- crime report became a lengthy examination Abraham Michael Rosenthal was born in ducing ripples in the curved geometry of the of why 38 people heard her screams for help Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, the fifth child and universe. without helping her or even calling police. only son of Harry and Sara Rosenthal. His Mr. Rosenthal wrote a book about the inci- father was born Harry Shipiatski in Byelo- This shift in the concept Einstein defined as dent, ‘‘Thirty-Eight Witnesses,’’ in which he russia (today’s Belarus) but took the name ‘‘spacetime’’ has proven to be a difficult task raised this question: ‘‘What was the apathy Rosenthal from an uncle in London on his for computer simulations to execute or follow. of the people of Austin Street compared, way to Canada in 1903. Yet UTB scientists M. Campanelli, C.O. let’s say, with the apathy of non-Nazi Ger- He was a trapper and fur trader before Lousto and Y. Zlochower devised a novel mans toward Jews?’’ moving the family to New York in the early technique for properly representing black Another memorable story Mr. Rosenthal 1930s and settling in the Bronx, where he be- holes during such collisions, which is why ordered was about Daniel Burros, 28, the came a house painter. He died of injuries suf- blond and blue-eyed leader of the Ku Klux fered in a fall from a scaffold when his son UTB’s breakthrough is an epic contribution in Klan in New York and the No. 2 man in the was 12. the study of our universe. American Nazi Party, headed by George Lin- As a teenager, Mr. Rosenthal lost his four This extraordinary discovery will enable sci- coln Rockwell. sisters to various illnesses. He contracted os- entists to verify Einstein’s famed theory of After the Times wrote about Burros, Mr. teomyelitis, a bone disease, and used a cane general relativity—and specifically his theory Rosenthal got a tip from a friend that Burros or crutches. He regained his mobility after of spacetime curvature. Results from this dis- was Jewish and had celebrated his bar mitz- being taken in by the Mayo Clinic as a char- covery will prepare the NASA/European Space vah. When a reporter confronted Burros ity patient. Agency’s 2015 gravitational wave mission, about his past, he said he would kill himself He attended what was then called City Col- if it was publicized. The next day, the Times lege of New York. Although tuition was free, which aims to detect the gravitational waves carried the story on the front page, and the he used to say, it was more than he could af- produced from supermassive black hole colli- next night, Burros committed suicide. ford. He worked on the school newspaper and sions, also considered the most potent source The Times was widely criticized, but Mr. was a stringer for the New York Herald Trib- of energy in the universe. Rosenthal expressed no regrets. une. When the Times stringer at the college Physicists at UTB’s Center for Gravitational ‘‘He was who he was, he did what he did, was drafted for World War II service in 1943, Wave Astronomy have made exceptional and I no more would feel guilty of saying he took his job. He became a full-time re- progress in their field through this develop- that a certain person robbed a bank,’’ Mr. porter in 1944. ment, which is a reflection of their extensive Rosenthal told an interviewer. ‘‘Was I happy He became a U.S. citizen in 1951. He kept a that he killed himself? Of course not. I did plaque marking the occasion on his office dedication and sheer creativity. Through such not feel that we had done anything but the wall. efforts, they are establishing south Texas as a appropriate thing. It was he who was mis- His marriage to Ann Marie Burke Rosen- force in space science issues and as a leader appropriating his life, both in what he was thal ended in divorce. in innovation.

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