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John B. OakesJohn B. Oakes
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strong opposition to air pollution controls, which we were in favor of. We felt this again in connection with the auto industry's resistance to air pollution controls, and to other safety regulations too.

4We felt it in respect to the so-called bottle deposit legislation, which I favored as an anti-litter and energy saving device, but which was opposed by Mr. William May, president of the American Can Company and member of the New York Times Board of Directors, who both directly and indirectly attempted to influence the Times' position on this subject.

And, as I have said previously, in connection with various regulations proposed in respect to the Stock Market and Wall Street, which certain specific business interests naturally were objecting to.

I felt increasingly, and discussed this with some concern with my immediate colleagues, that -

Q:

By that you mean on the (editorial) page?

Oakes:

On the page, exactly, whom I mentioned in the previous talk, Raskin and Hechinger particularly, and our economic people, first Murray Rossant and subsequently Leonard Silk, the last few years, what we felt were pressures on us to modify our views.

One time, the publisher asked me to come out to Detroit with him. This was in 1972, to visit the Chrysler organization, at their invitation, of course, to simply show what they were planning for the future, particularly in respect to the then very, very touchy question of auto emissions. A trip had been set up by the Chrysler executives, requesting the publisher and the managing editor, Rosenthal, and me to go out to Detroit, fly out in their plane, have lunch with the executives, and see everything that they had to show us.





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