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was mine--

Your idea?

That was my idea, yes. And he had Sidey into the White House all the time, either to give him hell, or to stroke him. “Oh that was a marvelous piece you did. You interpret so well what's going on” etc., etc. Sidey knew perfectly well what was being done to him, but Sidey would be the first to admit that it's not bad being invited into the White House every week to chat with the President.

Access to the top.

Well, sure. Access to the top. And you know, it has some impact, but Sidey was very smart here. I think he had an operating theory and that is, “Every time I write something nice about him, I got to remember to write something nasty about him two weeks later.” [laughter] And his column tended to always do this. But Kennedy was very, very much an influencer. And of course, Johnson was.

Let's stay with Kennedy just for a minute. Do you remember particularly bad moments of pressure, perhaps coverage of the Bay of Pigs, or the Cuban Missile Crisis?

No. In the Bay of Pigs, because of the timing the pressure was put on the Times, not on us because they're daily, and