Part: 1234         Session: 123         Page 565758596061626364656667686970717273747576777879808182838485868788 of 512

point. The question of being an apologist for Castro I think is absolute nonsense. I am not going to get into anything that Matthews may have said in his book or on the lecture platform; I'm talking about Matthews as an editorial man for the Times.

And, incidentally, everything he says about Cuba or he or any other editorial writer says is controlled by myself, and if I don't happen to be in the office that day, by an editor in charge of the page. Nobody can put into the page just what he wants, without any regard for what the position of the Times is as determined by the Times as an institution, and I happen to be the man in charge, subject to the publisher's control.

So, in a word, the editorial expressions we've had on Cuba are the Times expressions; they're not merely Matthews' personal view. They are edited, and modified in some cases, as in any other subject, by the editorial control which is usually exercised by myself. Matthews is not the only person that writes on Latin American affairs. It's perfectly true that he has written most, but by no means all, of our editorials on this subject.

Does he still write the Cuba editorials?

He writes many of them, many of them. He went to Cuba last fall at my urging and with full approval, but not to write news stories, but to get reacquainted with the Cuban situation. And I, of course, very much regret that Castro in one of his speeches while Matthews was there had some cordial remarks to make about Matthews. This was too bad because, of course, it only built up the feeling on the part of many people that Matthews is