Part: 1234         Session: 12         Page 34353637383940414243444546474849505152535455 of 512

As in everything else, stories go around, perhaps naïve ones-I'm not quite sure whether they're true or not. I'm thinking specifically of the story that was going around when the Times endorsed Kennedy. There was a story that some vote had been taken among the people who were involved, and so forth and so on, and there was one vote only for Nixon.

The only story I heard about such a vote was at the time of the Eisenhower- Stevenson campaign. I don't even remember hearing a story about a vote at the time of the Kennedy-Nixon campaign. I can assure you that in the Kennedy-Nixon campaign that you ask about there was certainly no vote whatsoever, and if there had been, it wouldn't have made any difference because decisions certainly aren't made that way.

There was a very widely circulated story at the time of one of the Eisenhower-Stevenson campaigns that there had been a very exciting vote of the Editorial Board and a whole lot of drama went with it, which was all absolute nonsense, just nonsense. These things are not done by vote. Of course, there is discussion on these decisions. The principal discussion, however, is between the editor of the editorial page and the publisher or president of the paper. And I have already described what the process is as clearly and honestly as I know how.

I guess it was a few weeks ago that there was an editorial for the recognition of Red China. Can you tell me how that came about? Why you decided that this was the time for an editorial advocating the recognition of Red China?