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Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

John B. OakesJohn B. Oakes
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fully recognize that. That is the condition really under which any editor would remain editor of a page. He would have to be in general agreement with the publisher's view so that there wouldn't be any conflict, remembering that the publisher is the ultimately responsible authority. And I fully agree and think that is the only possible way that a paper can be run. And we are in general agreement. But the problem arises on an occasional specific issue. If the publisher feels very strongly about the issue and the editorial board represented by myself feels strongly about it in a different sense, then we get a situation which, if it occurred frequently, would mean that the editor should not remain in his job as editor. But if it occurs only very rarely, it is something that can be compromised out between the men who are responsible people. It can be compromised out either in actual words, in the presentation of ideas so that both views can be given, or really in a better way probably by the paper not taking a position on that specific point.

There's one issue so far that we've had of this type, which, oddly enough, involves construction of the supersonic airplane by the United States government or United States government participation in it, in which we have had a major difference of view and which we have been able satisfactorily to compromise out in a way so far that has been satisfactory to me and also to the publisher, and this is because we both are reasonable people. My own preference in this would have been to have dropped the issue altogether rather than have a kind of compromise editorial appear. I should have said that this issue was complicated by the fact that we took a very clear position editorially, but after having taken it two or three times while Mr. Punch Sulzberger was publisher, he had a change of view and I did not. This created a difficult problem because he wished to run an editorial that really reversed our previous position, and I wasn't willing to do this. That's the





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