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Part: 1234 Session: 12345 Page 385386387388389390391392393394395396397398399400401402403404405406407408409410411412413414415416417418419420421 of 512
-- he hadn't phoned me about this, and so when I got to my home that evening, early Sunday evening, I had a very angry message from Punch Sulzberger, who happened to have seen it in the first edition of Monday's paper. He hadn't seen it in advance, any more than I had. He wanted it pulled out. He was very upset because it was so strongly and passionately against this particular bombing raid. I first [laughing] had to get hold of the editorial before I could talk to him about it. This was between editions. He wanted the whole thing pulled. I persuaded him not to pull the editorial. But I really -- on the telephone, I worked on it and pulled out some of the more elaborate and fancy phrases that the editorial writer had used and generally toned it down, and Punch reluctantly agreed to let that go into the next edition of the Times. And so the same editorial, but considerably toned down, which, as far as I was concerned, suited me all right because I thought it was a little bit overwritten and overpassionate, too. But leaving the sense of the editorial in, and Punch was very good about that. That is really the only dramatic case in which I remember, throughout the whole period, that Punch really raised hell about an editorial on the war. And that was such, very much, an unusual situation at the last minute.
There was at least one other time that Punch strongly criticized an editorial that he did see in advance, in the usual way. He wrote me a memo about it, adding and suggesting -- not that the basis of the editorial, he didn't object to the tone or the basis of it at all -- but there were a lot of specific points, which were absolutely valid, that he wanted raised in the editorial. He went into some considerable detail about certain points, which we incorporated in the editorial. It was an editorial called “New Phase in Vietnam,” I think. This was in May of '64. There was no objection at all to the changes that he had made. In fact, I thought that some of the proposals were right and helped the editorial and others didn't seem to me necessarily good or bad, but there was nothing at all to disagree with,
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