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I felt that way and I still feel that way - that it's hard enough to maintain a paper such as we ought to have maintained, with the standards that I think we ought to have, without going off in varying directions.

In any case, the afternoon newspaper was adjudged impractical and of course the idea was abandoned, and -

How long did that stage go on? Do you happen to remember, all through '67?

'67. They were working on it for months. I just happen to have here a long memorandum from two of the editors, Rosenthal and [inaudible] to Daniel, to the managing editor, May, 1967, outlining such a newspaper, such an afternoon newspaper, but I can't tell you precisely how long that discussion went on. I would think certainly by the end of '67, it must have been determined that it wasn't practical.

One of the basic reasons was the traffic situation, distributing the paper, in New York in the afternoon in time to catch the commuter rush hour home to the suburbs, how could you get the papers around. That's one of the reasons. I'm sure that there were lots of other reasons it was never done.

I kept plugging away at Op-Ed. I have a note here to Harding Bancroft, then, as I recall, the executive vice president, one of the top officers of the Times, in December of '67, saying, “You know of course that I'm ready to go with an Op-Ed page as soon as I get the green light, but that green light is a long time a-turning, and -”