A list of Time's Persons of the Year
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from December 2002.
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- 2001: Rudolph Giuliani 2000: George W. Bush 1999: Jeff Bezos 1998: Bill Clinton, KennethStarr 1997: Andrew Grove 1996: David Ho 1995: Newt Gingrich - 1994: Pope John Paul II 1993: F.W. de Klerk, Nelson Mandela, Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin - 1992: Bill Clinton 1991: Ted Turner - 1990: "The Two George Bushes," portraying the former president as a capable foreign-policy leader but misguided on domestic affairs
- 1989: Mikhail Gorbachev 1988: Endangered planet Earth 1987: Mikhail Gorbachev 1986: Corazon Aquino 1985: Deng Xiaoping - 1984: Peter Ueberroth 1983: Ronald Reagan, Yuri Andropov 1982: The computer 1981: Lech Walesa 1980: Ronald Reagan 1979: Ayatollah Khomeini 1978: Deng Xiaoping 1977: Anwar Sadat 1976: Jimmy Carter 1975: American women - 1974: King Faisal of Saudi Arabia - 1973: Judge John Sirica - 1972: Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger 1971: Richard Nixon - 1970: Willy Brandt - 1969: The MiddleAmericans - 1968: Frank Borman, James Lovell, William Anders - 1967: Lyndon Johnson - 1966: The 25-and-under generation
- 1965: William C. Westmoreland - 1964: Lyndon Johnson - 1963: Martin Luther King Jr.
- 1962: Pope John XXIII - 1961: John F. Kennedy - 1960: U.S. scientists - 1959: Dwight D. Eisenhower
- 1958: Charles de Gaulle Cont'd on page 30 Time managing editor Jim Kelly said the women embody a critical struggle facing the country - how to restore trust in disgraced institutions, from major corporations to the Catholic Church. ``It's their modesty that's so becoming," Kelly told The Associated Press. ``All three are just resolute in standing up for what is right. All three of them are made of very strong character."
Rowley, 48, wrote a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller in May criticizing the agency for ignoring evidence before Sept. 11, 2001, that hinted of an attack. She later told the Senate that the FBI was mired in bureaucracy and "careerism."
Cooper, 38, a WorldCom internal auditor, alerted the company's board in June to US$3.8 billion in accounting irregularities. A month later, the telecommunications giant declared the largest bankruptcy in US history. Watkins, 43, sent memos in August 2001 warning Enron chairman Kenneth Lay that improper accounting could cause the company to collapse. The company later filed for bankruptcy, and Watkins resigned as a vice president last month.
Time's cover story on the three women compares them with Sept. 11 firefighters as heroes chosen by circumstance.
"They were people who did right just by doing their jobs rightly - which means ferociously, with eyes open and with the bravery the rest of us always hope we have and may never know if we do," the magazine writes.
Last year, Time editors selected then-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani for leading the city's response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Critics suggested Osama bin Laden should have been the pick as the year's top newsmaker.
The 2002 picks are unusual because the vast majority of the magazine's Persons of the Year have been long-established public figures - world leaders, war heroes, corporate chiefs.
In an interview with Time editors, Rowley, Cooper and Watkins - nationally unknown before this year - said some colleagues now hate them for shedding light on the mistakes of their superiors. "There is a price to be paid," Cooper said. "There have been times that I could not stop crying."
The magazine's Persons of the Year package includes profiles of the women and a joint interview of the three, conducted earlier this month. The issue hit US newsstands Monday. Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom, Coleen Rowley of the FBI and Sherron Watkins of Enron appear on the 30 December cover of Time Magazine's "Persons of the Year" issue called "The Whistleblowers". Cont'd from page 29 ots -1957: Nikita Khrushchev
-1956: Hungarian patri- 1955: Harlow H. Curtice
- 1954: John Foster Dulles
- 1953: Konrad Adenauer
- 1952: Queen Elizabeth - 1951: Mohammed Mossadegh
- 1950: The American fighting man
- 1949: Winston Churchill - 1948: Harry S. Truman - 1947: George Marshall - 1946: James F. Byrnes - 1945: Harry S. Truman - 1944: Dwight D. Eisenhower
- 1943: George Marshall - 1942: Joseph Stalin - 1941: Franklin D. Roosevelt
- 1940: Winston Churchill - 1939: Joseph Stalin - 1938: Adolf Hitler - 1937: Chiang Kai-shek - 1936: Wallis Warfield Simpson
- 1935: Haile Selassie - 1934: Franklin D. Roosevelt
- 1933: Hugh S. Johnson - 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt
- 1931: Pierre Laval - 1930: Mohandas Gandhi - 1929: Owen Young - 1928: Walter Chrysler - 1927: Charles Lindbergh
