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it actually was a description. I don't see any reason not to specify. The word involved was “dictatorial” or “dictator” as applied to General de Gaulle in a certain context. The publisher actually cabled our Paris bureau to see whether they thought de Gaulle could be properly described as a dictator, and we got long answers back, the general gist of which I guess was in the negative. Anyway, he felt this supported his view. But all this went on during a weekend when I was away. When I came back, I really raised hell about this whole procedure. This was really, I think, the beginning of several difficult weeks that I described in more detail a few weeks ago.

I only mention this because this is another aspect, different from what I was talking about before, but another aspect of the degree to which a publisher should or should not interfere with the actual product of the editorial page. Technically I have to admit, as I did to him, that he has the right because he is responsible for the paper. And yet in practice it's impossible to operate, impossible for a self-respecting editor to operate a page if he is going to be subject to this kind of detailed interference, just as if he's going to be overruled in the larger issues that I described a few minutes ago. I'm quite sure that we worked this out satisfactorily in practice. I don't think it can ever under any circumstances, with me or anyone else, be worked out precisely in theory. This is what, as I said before, my predecessor advised-not to try to work it out in theory but to take it on an ad hoc basis because the issue will arise very, very rarely. I think that's precisely true.

In describing it, you haven't even implied this, but in listening to you I get the impression that it's very similar to something that happens in every walk of life, especially newspapers, and another great comparison is in the military where you have a new