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John B. OakesJohn B. Oakes
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Part:         Session:         Page of 512

Oakes:

I had to stand for - I was my own man, and I wasn't going to be anybody's mouthpiece.

So we, on the few occasions where this issue arose at all, were able either to compromise it out in a mutually satisfactory manner, as we did on that SST issue, or, on a very few occasions, simply agree that we wouldn't publish anything at all.

Q:

Let's think of a few examples of these.

Oakes:

Well, that is going to be hard for me to recall, without running through the files.

Q:

The ones that stick out in your mind, perhaps, would be the ones that would be the most -

Oakes:

Well, of course, the final - the example where this didn't work - well, there were two outstanding cases which might illustrate this problem, and how it didn't work.

As I had said earlier, on the question of issues of public policy, really very seldom did I ever get any real disagreement from the publisher. Even during the Vietnam period, when I and, along with one or two of my associates on the editorial board, were much more vigorously critical of American policy, in respect to the Vietnam war, than any of the other executives on the paper -

Q:

Even more than the page was?





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