Part: 1234         Session: 123         Page 8990919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108109110111112113114115116117118119 of 512

Occasionally I get pieces from one or two of our news staff. This is done less frequently, but I happen to have had one a few days ago. Our financial man was out of town, and I wanted a piece on a certain issue involving the Stock Exchange, on which we had previously editorialized. I called up a member of the Washington Bureau, who is a very good writer, and who is very knowledgeable about this, and he sent me an editorial which I used. There are a couple of people in the Washington Bureau that I occasionally call. Tony Lewis is certainly the main one who I think is very, very good, and who, as a matter of fact, I wanted to come to the editorial board, but he prefers to stay in Washington. Here's a case of a Times man, extremely able, excellent for the editorial board, whom I've tried to get, and whose decision it was not to come, but to stay in Washington.

I'm interested in the editorial on Brazil. What is the purpose in an editorial like this?

I'm sorry you felt it was necessary to ask that, because that must mean that it didn't succeed in its purpose, which was an effort-while admittedly we couldn't decide what's going to happen in Brazil, and we couldn't contribute a great deal to what is happening, and further admitting that most editorials I like to have persuade somebody, not all editorials are this way, and I think it would be boring if they all were, although I think it would be boring if most of them weren't. It's a question of balance. In this case, it was an editorial that had one specific purpose, to point to our readership, to the very, very great importance of what is going on in Brazil, and the fact that Brazil is not just another minor Latin American banana republic, but there are tremendous convulsions going on in Brazil, and what happens in Brazil could be of vast importance to the United States.