[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 136 (Wednesday, October 16, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10549-S10553]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO STEPHEN E. AMBROSE
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 342; that the
resolution and the preamble be agreed to; that the motion to reconsider
be laid upon the table; and that any statements relating to the
resolution be printed in the Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 342) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:
S. Res. 342
Whereas Stephen E. Ambrose dedicated his life to telling
the story of America;
Whereas Stephen Ambrose's 36 books form a body of work that
has educated and inspired the people of this Nation;
Whereas President Bill Clinton awarded Stephen Ambrose the
National Humanities Medal for his contribution to American
historical understanding;
Whereas Stephen Ambrose made history accessible to all
people and had an unprecedented 3 works on the New York Times
Bestsellers list simultaneously;
Whereas Stephen Ambrose served as Honorary Chairman of the
National Council of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial and lent
his name, time, and resources to innumerable other
philanthropic endeavors;
Whereas Stephen Ambrose committed himself to understanding
the personal histories of the men and women often referred to
as the ``greatest generation'';
Whereas Stephen Ambrose's groundbreaking work on the
history of World War II and the D-day invasion culminated in
the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans; and
Whereas all Americans appreciate the contribution Stephen
Ambrose has made in recapturing the courage, sacrifice, and
heroism of the D-day invasion on June 6, 1944: Now,
therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) mourns the death of Stephen E. Ambrose;
(2) expresses its condolences to Stephen Ambrose's wife and
5 children;
(3) salutes the excellence of Stephen Ambrose at capturing
the greatness of the American spirit in words; and
(4) directs the Secretary of the Senate to transmit an
enrolled copy of this resolution to the family of Stephen
Ambrose.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, this resolution is to honor--I am not
sure words can actually do appropriate justice--a great American who
passed away this last weekend. That American is Stephen Ambrose, the
author of a number of books, a man who helped our Nation understand the
dynamics of war, the spectacular strengths of the American infantry men
and women in uniform.
He passed away quite a young man in his midsixties. He was a
professor of history, known by many of us personally, and was a
personal friend of the Senator from Alaska. I submit for the Record
this resolution, to have it appear in the Congressional Record to honor
a great American, someone Louisiana has lost and the Nation has lost. I
am not sure we can ever replace him.
Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Ms. LANDRIEU. Yes.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask the Senator from Louisiana allow me to
be a cosponsor of this resolution.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Yes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to my friend from Louisiana, I love to
read. I have very few extracurricular activities outside the Senate,
but one is reading. I have received so much pleasure from ``Undaunted
Courage,'' the great book about the Lewis and Clark expedition, which
changed my view of our country. Of course, the work he did on World War
II is something that will forever be in my mind and the mind of anyone
who knows anything or cares about the history of this country. And to
have the pleasure of being able to talk with him on a number of
occasions when he came to speak to groups of Senators, I consider one
of the pleasures of this job.
I compliment the Senator from Louisiana for submitting this
resolution. It is a resolution I will remember as having been a part of
because he allowed me to have so much pleasure in traveling to places
in my mind's eye I would never be able to reach but for his great
ability to write the English language.
Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Senator, and I am pleased to have him
cosponsor this resolution. It has been said Stephen Ambrose was not a
historian's historian, but he was a student's historian. He was truly
an exceptional teacher. In my mind, when I think of an exceptional
teacher, it is not someone who just communicates facts but someone who
teaches in a way that inspires one to be better, to help one understand
the context in which one lives. He was not an exceptional teacher just
for the brightest kids in the class but for every kid in the class.
He taught--I used to say he taught at UNO--at the University of New
Orleans, and kids would say their whole life was changed hearing him
lecture. He lectured in the Senate, which changed many of our lives and
outlooks.
He was an extraordinary man and left us way too soon. He left a
number of works and disciples, if you will, of his work. He certainly
will live on, and we were blessed to know him.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
[[Page S10550]]
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I inquire of the Senator from
Alaska, who is standing to be recognized, I have a major speech I wish
to make. If the Senator has a few remarks, I will certainly defer to
let him go first.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, it is my intention to make some remarks
as a cosponsor of the Ambrose resolution, not to exceed 10 or 12
minutes at the most.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I
be recognized upon the conclusion of the Senator's remarks, and I defer
to the Senator from Alaska.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The
Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his courtesy, and
I thank Senator Landrieu for submitting this Ambrose resolution.
I thought Stephen Ambrose's book ``Undaunted Courage'' was one of the
best books I ever read in my life. A few years back, my secretary said
Stephen Ambrose wanted to come talk to me. Of course, being sort of a
provincial type, I got out my book and had it on my desk ready for him
to autograph when he arrived.
We talked about his dream. He had a dream of a museum for World War
II. He talked with me at length about that. As a member of the
Appropriations Committee, he was openly seeking money from the
taxpayers of the United States for this museum. It was my privilege to
convince the Congress to aid him in that effort. It is in New Orleans,
and I say to any American who wants to understand World War II, they
should go to New Orleans and see this marvelous museum.
It was my privilege to years later go through the museum with him the
day before it opened. It is a fantastic living memorial to those others
have called our greatest generation.
I happen to be one of that generation, one significantly honored by
the fact I never suffered a scratch or had a crash or did anything I
did not really enjoy in World War II. Being a pilot was my dream, and I
was a pilot. We talked at length about that. As a matter of fact,
Stephen Ambrose and I talked about a book he was going to write. He did
write about the squadron of which former Senator George McGovern was a
part.
I am here today to try to tell the Senate about a person I learned to
love. He was not only a distinguished author, he was a man's man.
He came to Alaska probably three or four times in the last 5 or 6
years to go fishing, and we have had time where we sat around and
talked. I tried to talk to him about smoking so many cigarettes, and
unfortunately I think that is what caught up with him.
He really understood America. He told me of how he wrote that book
``Undaunted Courage''; how he took his boys and went down the trail
that Lewis and Clark took. They camped out through the summertime
several summers in a row. He told me how he had lived the history. I
remember him telling me he felt that book.
He has now become the person who has been the chronicler of the
Eisenhower period of our history. I think he wrote nine different books
about Eisenhower's participation. He was called by President Eisenhower
to be his official biographer. He told me personally about that and how
he had not expected that.
He has now completed his life, unfortunately early. He has left a
mark for historians to envy because he was a popular historian. I
challenge anyone to read one of his books and not want to read the next
one written by Steve Ambrose. For instance, he wrote his own biography.
I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record following my
remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1).
Mr. STEVENS. It is one of the most interesting biographies a person
could read because he personally wrote it. It is sort of a roaming
history about a man who enjoyed life.
His books about World War II, of course, will live in history. Of all
of them, I enjoyed ``Band of Brothers'' more than any others because
that was made into the series I hope many in the Senate had an
opportunity to see.
I have gotten copies of his books and given them to so many friends
because they represent to me an understanding of the Eisenhower period.
I truly believe those of us who served in World War II worshiped our
President then, and he showed that worship when he wrote about
Eisenhower. He had the honor to go through all of the Eisenhower
papers. He edited and issued five different volumes of the Eisenhower
papers. If one wants to know the period of World War II and the time
that has followed in terms of people who reviewed the history of World
War II, they have to turn to one of Steve Ambrose's books, and think
about some of them.
I ask unanimous consent that the Associated Press' list of the 39
books that Steve Ambrose wrote in his lifetime appear following my
remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 2).
Mr. STEVENS. Think of these things he wrote about: ``Eisenhower and
the German POWs: Facts Against Falsehood''; ``Nixon: The Ruin and
Recovery of a Politician''; ``Eisenhower: Soldier and President'';
``Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician''; ``Nixon: The Education of a
Politician''; ``Pegasus Bridge''; ``Eisenhower: The President'';
``Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect''; ``Milton
Eisenhower''; ``Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage
Establishment''; ``Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two
American Warriors''; ``General Ike: Abilene to Berlin''; ``The Military
in American Society''; ``The Supreme Commander: The War Years of
General Dwight D. Eisenhower''; and ``The Papers of Dwight D.
Eisenhower.''
He wrote on Eisenhower in Berlin. Before he even got to the
Eisenhower books he wrote ``Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West
Point.'' He also had a series of books about Lincoln, ``Halleck,
Lincoln's Chief of Staff,'' the one he personally gave me, his own
``Wisconsin Boy in Dixie.''
For those of us who are in the Senate, I hope they have read one of
the last books he wrote, and that is ``The Wild Blue,'' which is really
the story of George McGovern and the B-24 squadron in World War II. I
think that reads better than any of the Ambrose books, particularly
because those of us who knew George could understand him even more as a
Senator once we realized what he went through as a bomber pilot.
I thank Ms. Landrieu for submitting this resolution because I think
the country should honor Stephen Ambrose. I know President Clinton
honored him in 1999 with the National Humanities Medal, but very
clearly this man has left his mark on our country. Americans for
centuries to come will know more about the period in which some of us
have lived because Steve Ambrose dedicated his life to writing history.
I send my thoughts and my best to Moira, his wife, who traveled with
him at times to Alaska. I shall miss him. He was scheduled to come up
again this year and go fishing with me.
I ask unanimous consent that another item from Stephen Ambrose's
history be printed in the Record following my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 3).
Mr. STEVENS. I thank the Senator for yielding to me. I commend all of
the Ambrose books to anyone who wants to understand the period of World
War II. He was an author and a great personal friend.
Exhibit 1
I was born in 1936 and grew up in Whitewater, Wisconsin, a
small town where my father was the M.D. My high school had
only 300 students but was good enough to offer two yeas of
Latin, which taught me the centrality of verbs--placement,
form, tense.
At the University of Wisconsin, I started as a pre-med, but
after a course on American history with William B.
Hesseltine, I switched my major. He was a great teacher of
writing, with firm rules such as abandon chronology at your
peril; use the active voice; avoid adverbs whenever possible;
be frugal with adjectives, as they are but the salt and
pepper for the meat (nouns).
On to L.S.U., where I studied for M.A. under T. Harry
Williams, another fine historian who stressed the importance
of writing well. After getting my M.A. degree in 1958, I
returned to Wisconsin to do my Ph.D. work under Hesseltine.
[[Page S10551]]
Funny thing, Harry Williams was a much better writer than
Hesseltine, but Hesseltine was the better teacher of writing.
We graduate students once asked him: ``How can you demand so
much from us when your own books are not all that well
written,'' as we confronted him with a review of one of his
books that praised his research and historical understanding
but deplored his writing. Hesseltine laughed and replied,
``My dear boys, You have a better teacher than I did.''
From 1960 to 1995 I was a full-time teacher (University of
New Orleans, Rutgers, Kansas State, Naval War College, U.C.
Berkeley, a number of European schools, among others),
something that has been invaluable to my writing. There is
nothing like standing before 50 students at 8 a.m. to start
talking about an event that occurred 100 years ago, because
the look on their faces is a chellenge--``let's see you keep
me awake.'' You learn what works and what doesn't in a hurry.
Teaching and writing are one to me-- in each case I am
telling a story. As I sit at my computer, or sand at the
podium, I think of myself as sitting around the campfire
after a day on the trail, telling stories that I hope will
have the members of the audience, or the readers, leaning
forward just a bit, wanting to know what happens next.
Some of the rules of writing I've developed on my own
include: never try to write about a battle until you have
walked the ground; when you write about politicians, keep in
mind that somebody has to do it; you are a story-teller, not
God, so your job is not to pass judgments but explain,
illustrate, inform and entertain.
The idea for a book comes in a variety of ways. I started
as a Civil War historian because Hesseltine taught the Civil
War. I wrote about Eisenhower because he asked me to become
his biographer, on the basis of a book I had done on Henry
Halleck, Lincoln's Chief of Staff. I never wanted to write
about Nixon but my editor (Alice Mayhew at Simon and
Schuster) made me do it by saying. ``Where else can you find
a greater challenge?'' I did Crazy Horse and Custer because I
took my family camping in the Black Hills of South Dakota and
got hooked on the country, and the topic brought me back to
the Black Hills many times. I did Meriwether Lewis to have an
excuse to keep returning to Montana, thus covering even more
of the American West.
My World War II books flowed out of the association with
Eisenhower, along with my feelings toward the GIs. I was ten
years old when the war ended. I thought the returning
veterans were giants who had saved the world from barbarism.
I still think so. I remain a hero worshiper. Over the decades
I've interviewed thousands of veterans. It is a privilege to
hear their stories, then write them up.
What drives me is curiosity. I want to know how this or
that was done--Lewis and Clark getting to the Pacific; the
GIs on D-Day; Crazy Horse's Victory over George Custer at the
Little Big Horn; the making of an elite company in the 101st
Airborne, and so on. And I've found that if I want to know,
I've got to do the research and then write it up myself. For
me, the act of writing is the act of learning.
I'm blessing to have Moira Buckley Ambrose as my wife. She
was an English Lit major and school teacher; she is an avid
reader; she has a great ear. At the end of each writing day,
she sits with me and I read aloud what I've done. After more
than three decades of this, I still can't dispense with
requiring her first of all to say, ``That's good, that's
great, way to go.'' But then we get to work. We make the
changes. This reading aloud business is critical to me--I've
developed an ear of my own, so I can hear myself read--as it
reveals awkward passages better than anything else. If I
can't read it smoothly, it needs fixing.
Hesseltine used to tell his students that the act of
writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the
seat of a chair. It is a monk's existence, the loneliest job
in the world. As Moira and I have five kids (at one time all
teens together; the phone in the evening can be imagined) I
started going to bed at eight to get up at four and have
three quiet hours for writing before the teaching day began.
The kids grew up and moved out and I retired in May, 1995,
but I keep to the habit.
I'm sometimes asked which of my books is my own favorite.
My answer is, whatever one I'm working on. Right now (Winter
1999) a book on World War II in the Pacific as well as a book
on the 15th Air Force and the B-24 Liberators they flew. I
think the greatest achievement of the American Republic in
the 18th Century was the army at Valley Forge; in the 19th
Century it was the Army of the Potomac; in the 20th Century,
it was the U.S. military in WWII. I want to know how we beat
the Japanese in the Pacific and how our airforce helped us
beat the Germans. To do a book of this scope is daunting but
rewarding. I get paid for interviewing the old soldiers and
reading their private memoirs. My job is to pick out the best
one of every fifty or so stories and pass it along to
readers, along with commentary on what it illustrates and
teaches. It is a wonderful way to make a living.
My experiences with the military have been as an observer.
The only time I wore a uniform was in naval ROTC as a
freshman at the University of Wisconsin, and in army ROTC as
a sophomore. I was in second grade when the United States
entered World War II, in sixth grade when the war ended. When
I graduated from high school, in 1953, I expected to go into
the army, but within a month the Korean War ended and I went
to college instead. Upon graduation in 1957, I went straight
to graduate school. By the time America was again at war, in
1964, I was twenty-eight years old and the father of five
children. So I never served.
But I have admired and respected the men who did fight
since my childhood. When I was in grade school World War II
dominated my life. My father was a navy doctor in the
Pacific. My mother worked in a pea cannery beside German POWs
(Afrika Korps troops captured in Tunisia in May 1943). Along
with my brothers--Harry, two years older, and Bill, two Years
younger--I went to the movies three times a week (ten cents
six nights a week, twenty-five cents on Saturday night), not
to see the films, which were generally Clinkers, but to see
the newsreels which were almost exclusively about the
fighting in North Africa, Europe, and the Pacific. We played
at war constantly. ``Japs'' vs. Marines, GIs vs. ``Krauts''.
In high school I got hooked on Napoleon. I read various
biographies and studied his campaigns. As a seventeen-year-
old freshman in naval ROTC, I took a course on naval history,
starting with the Greeks and ending with World War II (in one
semester!). My instructor had been a submarine skipper in the
Pacific and we all worshipped him. More important, he was a
gifted teacher who loved the navy and history. Although I was
a premed student with plans to take up my father's practice
in Whitewater, Wisconsin, I found the history course to be
far more interesting than chemistry of physics. But in the
second semester of naval ROTC, the required course was
gunnery. Although I was an avid hunter and thoroughly
familiar with shotguns and rifles, the workings of the five
inch cannon baffled me. So in my sophomore year I switched to
army ROTC.
Also that year, I took a course entitled ``Representative
Americans'' taught by Professor William B. Hesseltine. In his
first lecture he announced that in this course we would not
be writing term papers that summarized the conclusions of
three or four books; instead we would be doing original
research on nineteenth-century Wisconsin politicians,
professional and business leaders, for the purpose of putting
together a dictionary of Wisconsin biography that would be
deposited in the state historical society. We would,
Hesseltine told us, be contributing to the world's knowledge.
The words caught me up. I had never imagined I could do
such things as contribute to the world's knowledge. Forty-
five years later, the phrase continues to resonate with me.
It changed my life. At the conclusion of the lecture--on
General Washington--I went up to him and asked how I could do
what he did for a living. He laughed and said to stick
around, he would show me. I went straight to the registrar's
office and changed my major from premed to history. I have
been at it ever since.
____
Exhibit 2
Books by Historian Stephen Ambrose
[The Associated Press--Oct. 14]
``To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian,''
release date Nov. 19, 2002.
``The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the
Louisiana Purchase to Today'' (with Sam Abell and Douglas
Brinkley), 2002.
``The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s over
Germany,'' 2001.
``Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the
Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869,'' 2000.
``Comrades: Brothers, Fathers, Heroes, Sons, Pals,'' 1999.
``Witness to America: An Illustrated Documentary History of
the United States from the Revolution to Today'' (with
Douglas Brinkley), 1999.
``Lewis & Clark: Voyage of Discovery,'' 1998.
``The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys, the Men of World
War II,'' 1998.
``Americans At War,'' 1997.
``Rise To Globalism: American Foreign Policy from 1938 to
1997'' (Eighth revised edition with Douglas Brinkley), 1997.
``Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches
to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944-May 7,
1945,'' 1997.
``American Heritage New History of World War II'' (original
text by C. L. Sulzberger, revised and updated), 1997.
``Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson,
and the Opening of the American West,'' 1996.
``D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War
II,'' 1994.
``Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st
Airborne From Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest,'' 1992.
``Eisenhower and the German POWs: Facts Against
Falsehood,'' 1992.
``Nixon: The Ruin and Recovery of a Politician, 1973-
1990,'' 1991.
``Eisenhower: Soldier and President,'' 1990.
``Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962-1972,'' 1989.
``Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 1913-1962,'' 1987.
``Pegasus Bridge: June 6, 1944,'' 1985.
``Eisenhower: The President,'' 1985.
``Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-
Elect, 1890-1952,'' 1983.
``Milton Eisenhower: Educational Statesman'' (with Richard
Immerman), 1983.
``Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage
Establishment,'' 1981.
[[Page S10552]]
``Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two
American Warriors,'' 1975.
``General Ike: Abilene to Berlin,'' 1973.
``The Military and American Society'' (with James Barber),
1972.
``The Supreme Commander: The War Years of General Dwight D.
Eisenhower,'' 1970.
``The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Vols. 1-5,'' 1967.
``Institutions in Modern America,'' 1967.
``Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945: The Decision to Halt at the
Elbe,'' 1967.
``Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West Point,'' 1966.
``Upton and the Army,'' 1964.
``Halleck, Lincoln's Chief of Staff,'' 1962.
``Wisconsin Boy in Dixie,'' 1961.
____
Exhibit 3
[From the New York Times, Oct. 14, 2002.]
Stephen Ambrose, Historian Who Fueled New Interest in World War II,
Dies at 66
(By Richard Goldstein)
Stephen E. Ambrose, the military historian and biographer
whose books recounting the combat feats of American soldiers
and airmen fueled a national fascination with the generation
that fought World War II, died yesterday at a hospital in Bay
St. Louis, Miss. Mr. Ambrose, who lived in Bay St. Louis and
Helena, Mont., was 66.
The cause was lung cancer, which was diagnosed last April,
his son Barry said. ``Until I was 60 years old, I lived on a
professor's salary and I wrote books,'' Mr. Ambrose recalled
in November 1999. ``We did all right. We even managed to buy
some mutual funds for our grandchildren. I never in this
world expected what happened.''
Mr. Ambrose, known previously for multivolume biographies
of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon, emerged as a
best-selling author during the past decade. He was also an
adviser for films depicting heroic exploits, a highly paid
lecturer and an organizer of tours to historic sites.
His ascension to wealth and fame began with his book ``D-
Day, June 6, 1944: The Climatic Battle of World War II,''
marking the 50th anniversary of the Normandy invasion.
Drawing upon combat veterans' remembrances collected by the
Eisenhower Center in New Orleans, which Mr. Ambrose founded,
it became a best seller.
``The descriptions of individual ordeals on the bloody
beach of Omaha make this book outstanding,'' Raleigh
Trevelyan wrote in The New York Times Book Review.
Soon Mr. Ambrose was producing at least a book a year and
becoming a star at Simon & Schuster, which published all his
best-known books.
But earlier this year Mr. Ambrose was accused of ethical
lapses for having employed some narrative passages in his
books that closely paralleled previously published accounts.
The criticism came at a time of heightened scrutiny of
scholarly integrity. The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian
Doris Kearns Goodwin acknowledged in January 2002 that her
published, Simon & Schuster, paid another author in 1987 to
settle plagiarism accusations concerning her book ``The
Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys.'' In August 2001, the historian
Joseph J. Ellis, also a Pulitzer Prize winner, was suspended
for one year from his teaching duties at Mount Holyoke
College for falsely telling his students and others that he
had served with the military in Vietnam.
Mr. Ambrose said that his copying from other writers' works
represented only a few pages among the thousands he had
written and that he had identified the sources by
providing footnotes. He did concede that he should have
placed quotation marks around such material and said he
would do so in future editions. He denied engaging in
plagiarism and suggested that jealousy among academic
historians played a part in the criticism.
``Any book with more than five readers is automatically
popularized and to be scorned,'' Mr. Ambrose said in an
interview with The Los Angeles Times in April 2002. ``I did
my graduate work like anybody else, and I kind of had that
attitude myself. The problem with my colleagues is they never
grew out of it.''
Two years after his D-Day book was published, Mr. Ambrose
had another best seller, ``Undaunted Courage,'' the story of
Lewis and Clark's exploration of the West. He reported having
earned more than $4 million from it.
In 1997, his ``Citizen Soldiers'' chronicled combat from D-
Day to Germany's surrender. In 1998, Mr. Ambrose wrote ``The
Victors,'' a history of the war in Europe that drew on his
earlier books. In 1999, be brought out ``Comrades: Brothers,
Fathers, Heroes, Sons, Pals,'' an account of his own family
relationships and those of historical figures. In 2000, he
recounted the building of the transcontinental railroad in
``Nothing Like It in the World.'' In 2001, he had ``The Wild
Blue,'' the story of B-24 bomber crewmen in World War II's
European theater.
Mr. Ambrose's most recent book was ``The Mississippi and
the Making of a Nation,'' with Douglas G. Brinkley and the
photographer Sam Abell, published this fall by National
Geographic. After learning he had cancer, Mr. Ambrose wrote
``To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian,'' which
is to be published by Simon & Schuster later this year.
Mr. Ambrose was also a commentator for the Ken Burns
documentary ``Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of
Discovery,'' broadcast on PBS in 1997. He served as
consultant for ``Saving Private Ryan,'' the 1998 movie
acclaimed for its searing depiction of combat on D-Day. His
book ``Band of Brothers,'' the account of an American
paratrooper company in World War II, published in 1992, was
the basis for an HBO mini-series in 2001.
He founded the National D-Day Museum in 2000 in New Orleans
and was president of Stephen Ambrose Historical Tours.
In August 2001, The Wall Street Journal estimated that the
Ambrose family company was bringing in $3 million in revenue
annually. It said that Mr. Ambrose reported having donated
about $5 million over the previous five years to causes
including the Eisenhower Center and the National D-Day
Museum.
Stephen Edward Ambrose was born on Jan. 10, 1936, in
Decatur, Ill., and grew up in Whitewater, Wis., the son of a
physician who served in the Navy during World War II. As a
youngster, he was enthralled by combat newsreels.
He was a pre-med student at the University of Wisconsin in
the mid-1950's but was inspired by one of his professors,
William B. Heseltine, to become a historian.
``He was a hero worshiper, and he got us to worship with
him,'' Mr. Ambrose told The Baton Rouge Sunday Advocate many
years later. ``Oh, if you could hear him talk about George
Washington.''
After obtaining his bachelor's degree from Wisconsin, Mr.
Ambrose earned a master's degree in history at Louisiana
State and a doctorate in history from Wisconsin. He went on
to interview numerous combat veterans, but the only time he
wore a military uniform was in Navy and Army R.O.T.C. at
Wisconsin.
In 1964, Eisenhower, having admired Mr. Ambrose's biography
of Gen. Henry Halleck, Lincoln's chief of staff, asked him to
help edit his official papers. That led to Mr. Ambrose's two-
volume biography of Eisenhower.
The first volume, ``Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the
Army, President-Elect, 1890-1952'' (Simon & Schuster, 1983),
was described by Drew Middleton in the New York Times Book
Review as ``the most complete and objective work yet on the
general who became president.''
Mr. Ambrose also wrote a three-volume biography of Richard
M. Nixon, published in the late 1980's and early 90's.
He wrote or edited some 35 books and said that he often
arose at 4 in the morning and concluded his day's writing by
reading aloud for a critique from his wife, Moira, a former
high school teacher. His son Hugh, who was also his agent,
and other family members helped with his research in recent
years.
When he was confronted with instances of having copied from
others--``The Wild Blue'' had passages that closely resembled
material in several other books--a question arose as to
whether he was too prolific.
``Nobody can write as many books as he has--many of them
were well-written books--without the sloppiness that comes
with speed and the constant pressure to produce,'' said Eric
Foner, a history professor at Columbia University. ``It is
the unfortunate downside of doing too much too fast.''
David Rosenthal, the publisher of Simon & Schuster, said of
Mr. Ambrose's pace, ``We welcome that he is prolific.'' He
added, ``He works at a schedule that he sets, and we
encourage the amount of his output because there is a
readership that wants it.''
George McGovern, the former senator, whose experiences as a
bomber pilot were recounted in ``The Wild Blue,'' said
yesterday, ``He probably reached more readers than any other
historian in our national history.''
Mr. Ambrose retired from college teaching in 1995, having
spent most of his career at the University of New Orleans. He
received the National Humanities Medal in 1998.
In addition to his wife and his sons Barry, of Moiese,
Mont., and Hugh, of New Orleans, he is survived by another
son, Andy, of New Orleans; two daughters, Grace Ambrose of
Wappingers Falls, N.Y., and Stephenie Tubbs of Helena; five
grandchildren; and two brothers, Harry, of Virginia, and
William, of Maine.
In reflecting on his writing and on his life, Mr. Ambrose
customarily paid tribute to the American soldiers of World
War II, the object of his admiration for so long.
``I was 10 years old when the war ended,'' he said. ``I
thought the returning veterans were giants who had saved the
world from barbarism. I still think so. I remain a hero
worshiper.''
Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be added
as an original cosponsor of the Landrieu resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cantwell). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. It is my understanding Senator Reid has some
business to conduct before I begin my oration. As the Senator knows, I
am getting warmed up to get into the subject of the economy. So I yield
the floor to Senator Reid and ask unanimous consent that when the
Senator is through, I would be recognized.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
[[Page S10553]]
Mr. REID. I appreciate my friend, the Senator from Florida, for being
his usual courteous self.
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