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support anybody in the primary, which would be absolutely consistent with our position many times in the past. Not always but many times.

But I was enough worried about what the publisher had said to telephone my deputy, who was operating the page during my month's absence on the Vineyard -

Was that Raskin?

No. In this case Raskin had already retired, in May. Fred Hechinger, whom I had named assistant editor only a couple of months before. I told him that I thought we ought to prepare a memo as to why we should not be for Moynihan, for submission to the publisher, if that should be necessary, because I was a little worried about the publisher's inclinations toward Moynihan. But nothing had been said to me that would make me feel that what actually happened was going to happen.

So Fred prepared a memo, sent it up to me on the Vineyard. I thought it was excellent. I said, “Now, don't send this to the publisher until you hear that he is really serious about this thing, because as it is now, we're not going to support anybody. There's no use stirring the matter up.”

But I had a feeling that he was inclining to Moynihan. I simply wanted to be prepared.

Then, the very day I was due to leave the Vineyard to come back to New York, I got a telephone call from Hechinger, in great alarm, telling me that that morning, he had found