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make a very strong point that editorial opinion, as distinct from interpretation and news presentation, should be eliminated from the news columns. I do not think it has been. I fight the Times news department really almost every day on this. As recently as yesterday I sent a note to the publisher objecting to several paragraphs in the Middleton story from Mexico City which to me were straight editorial opinion and neither news nor interpretation. Middleton is terribly editorial and he's one of the worst offenders in this, but what I feel so strongly about is that I think this can be eliminated by strong desk action. Middleton's a good correspondent and of course he has opinions. It's almost inevitable perhaps. After all, having been a foreign correspondent for so many years, you naturally tend to mix opinion with your interpretation and with your facts, and I think this is understandable, but what I don't think is forgivable is that it's allowed to see print. So I blame our desk much more than the correspondent who is guilty in the first instance, but I think it's much more understandable.

I feel very strongly on this one, so I'm afraid I get a little up in the air about it.

Taking this into account but allowing that a lot of interpretation, if you can keep the opinion out, is necessary-

It's very difficult, by the way, to draw this line, but I think it can be drawn a hell of a lot more finely than we draw it.

Especially in a ticklish case such as South Vietnam was. And suppose that the editorial policy in New York, a pretty well-thought-out policy, is in pretty heavy opposition to the