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-- the most ruthless man in the world.

We have to remember that Abe Rosenthal was on staff at that moment.

Yes, yes, that's right. Well, I spent quite a bit of time in the next few days being quite distressed by what was apparently the determination to force me out at least sixteen months before my normal date of retirement. That is, forcing me out on January 1st of '77, which was only eight months away and was a full sixteen months earlier than I would have retired in the normal course of events.

I didn't like the implications of that. I thought it looked as though I were being forced out. I was very much distressed by that. I even confronted Punch with the specific question of whether there was the slightest dissatisfaction on his part with the way I had run the editorial page for the last fifteen and a half years. He said, “Of course not.” I pointed out to him that the editorial page had vastly risen in prestige during that period. Punch absolutely denied that he had any fault to find whatsoever with my management of the editorial page, insisting that if he didn't give Frankel my job right away, as compensation for losing out to Rosenthal, Frankel would quit the Times -- which I did not then and do not now believe. I do believe that Punch was acting under pressure from Wall Street and other sources -- which of course he never admitted -- that I was running a too liberal editorial page that was driving Wall Street -- and a couple of New York Times outside directors -- crazy.

What Punch was offering me, I suppose as sort of consolation, was what turned out to be a really great thing for me, and that was the opportunity after my prospective departure from