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John B. OakesJohn B. Oakes
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Oakes:

Well, we certainly had. And, without going back over the editorials, the few editorials on supersonic that appeared after this, we worked it out in a way that I felt I could take editorially, because my essential point then, as it has been ever since, in the subsequent twelve years which I ran the editorial page with Punch as publisher, my essential position was that I couldn't agree to seeing anything on the editorial page for which I was responsible, with which I really fundamentally disagreed. I felt that I had the personal responsibility for what appeared on the editorial page of the Times, and that was my function as editor of the page, to be able conscientiously to stand up for and to be able to defend, on a rational basis and on a basis that I could really believe in, everything that appeared. I considered that my responsibility as editor.

Now, the problem that arose at the time of the SST [supersonic transport] in '64 arose occasionally during the ensuing years. The problem was the degree to which the publisher, whom I always recognized - always recognized had the ultimate authority, and the ultimate responsibility - the degree to which the publisher would be entitled to force a differing view onto the editorial page. And this, as I indicated in that transcript of 1964, where this issue first became apparent, is a question that we always were able to resolve amicably and rationally by two or three methods, on the few occasions where we really had differences of opinion, because, after all, he had the ultimate responsibility for the page, which I fully recognized. I had the personal responsibility of feeling that I -

Q:

That you were your own man.





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