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editing the editorial page on January 1st of '77 -- the prospect of writing articles under my own name, for at least the next two years, for the Op-Ed page. I still felt that the implications of pushing me out this early in order to make way for Frankel were extremely upsetting to me, because it looked as though I was being fired for some reason that had no real justification.

But I have to say that the fact that I did start writing for the Op-Ed page in January of 1977 and continued for another twelve years or more doing that, on my own schedule -- more or less my own schedule -- turned out to be great for me. I have to say it was a very, very satisfactory and great opportunity for me to write under my own name, and I think it was very successful during those years. I'm quite proud of my contributions in the scores and scores of Op-Ed pieces I wrote on a wide variety of subjects: human rights, politics, environment, etc. for the Times under my own name and answering to nobody between 1977 and 1990 - '91.

The prospect of doing this seemed pretty good to me, but I still felt that I was pushed out quite too early and for absolutely the wrong reasons and wrong motives, even though -- as I repeat and want to emphasize -- even though my writing for Op-Ed over a period of twelve years or more, was I think one of the major accomplishments and high points of my career, along with the major part I played in originating the Op-Ed page in the first place.

But whatever the reasons Punch really had for forcing me to give up the editorship of the editorial page two years ahead of time, things were made much, much, much worse than they would have been, when I discovered within no time at all that Frankel, with of course the complete approval of the publisher, of Punch, was undermining my editorial staff by approaching several of them and forcing them, literally forcing them, to accept jobs that they didn't want elsewhere in the Times news department, or making it clear that they wouldn't