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

Oakes:

The first paragraph of this memo, though, I would like to read. I'm reading right from the memo made at the time.

“Mr. Oakes,” to put the discussion in perspective, “pointed out that for at least ten years,” that takes us back to '56 -

Q:

Right, to Suez.

Oakes:

Yes, it does take us back to Suez, and it probably is at the time that Eddie Barrett first called me.

Q:

Suez was just before the '56 election.

Oakes:

Yes, that's right. In any case I said at this meeting, right at the outset, because this is the - these are the minutes. We had a secretary taking minutes of the meeting. We had two or three meetings. I said that, “for at least ten years the question of whether or not to have an Op-Ed page has been raised”-- and I'll put in parenthetically, it had been raised by me-- “and that the main objection, up to this point, had apparently been that the obit page could not be moved. Now the go-ahead signal has come from the publisher to explore such a possibility, as he apparently feels the difficulties are not insurmountable, and the demise of the Herald Tribune did increase the obligation and need of such an addition to the Times,” which by the way was a point that I had made to Punch also.





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