Part: 1234         Session: 1234         Page 262263264265266267268269270271272273274275276277278279280281282283284285286287288289290291292293294295296297298299300301302303304305306307 of 512

page for Op-Ed or anything else; that the obituary page, which at that time and for years and years had been opposite the editorial page, was so much a fixture of the Times, and incidentally a very well read and very important one, that Orvil felt that Arthur Sulzberger would absolutely refuse to consider any possibility of its moving. I remember him telling me that, not in jest either, and so I dropped the idea, or quit talking about it, because it was just silly to -

It had to be there or no place.

It seemed to me that it didn't have to be there. But since I didn't get any real interested response anyway, I didn't push it, for a while.

Then Orvil unfortunately died in 1963, which was a great blow to me, but in any case, some time after that, I raised this question again with the new publisher, because Arthur Sulzberger Sr. (Punch's father) also had kind of withdrawn from the management of the paper. (He actually had officially withdrawn, retired as publisher, in 1961, when Orvil and I both came in on the same day, Orvil as publisher and myself as editor of the editorial page.) Arthur Sulzberger still retained great influence. Anyway, I thought, after a while, that I would at least raise this question with Punch, and I did.

In any case, by the middle sixties, certainly by '65, which would have been only a couple of years after Punch's accession as publisher, I was at it again with him, and by '66, this had actually become a formalized proposal of mine, which I think I have here, some actual documentation.