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in which very strong pressures were put on us, from a very major business operation, to either change or ridicule our editorial position.
My own clashes with the publisher came out in some other ways too, in connection with this, the fact that he was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Here we get totally away from the business world. The Metropolitan Museum of Art had a big expansion plan, which involved an incursion into Central Park. We editorially were strongly, always known and were in fact strong defenders of Central Park. We editorially were very unfavorably disposed to this huge expansion involving the Metropolitan Museum. The publisher was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum. Here again, in a totally different sphere, there was a clash between what I felt was the right of the Times editorial page to have independent judgments, and - and the view of the publisher, who had a really rather special interest, although there was nothing wrong about the interest. He was involved with the museum from a public service point of view. But here again, the clash between publisher's determination of what the editorial expression of the Times should be, and the editor's desire, and the editor's independent judgment, came into clash.
And here is one of the cases where we compromised out of this difference, by finally really not taking too much of a position on either side. In this connection, we had quite a go-round on the question of the Metropolitan Museum in the spring of '71. The publisher ordered a certain editorial in favor of the museum's position, and I finally persuaded him, and I give him full credit for being persuaded, not to force an editorial through, which of course he did have the ultimate right and power to do, against, and I used these words, “against the strong advice of the editor of the page,” and my colleagues too; my experts on this particular
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