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I guess the short answer to that is yes. You see, I had named Hechinger as an assistant, as deputy editor of the editorial page, or assistant editor of the editorial page, at the time of Abe Raskin's retirement, so Hechinger only had that job a very few months. The answer has to be yes because Punch eventually offered him the job of president of The New York Times Foundation, which was a perfectly appropriate job for him to have, but it was quite different from being deputy editor of the editorial page of the Times.

I must say, in fairness, it was of course natural that Frankel would want to have his own choice as his deputy editor.

However, Fred complained bitterly to me about the way he was being treated by Frankel during this period, and so I wrote a strong memo of protest to Punch, and then I got a memo back from Punch, rather angry and irritated, a very unpleasant memo, saying that he was now having discussions with Fred about his future. Which was ironic because the reason I wrote to Punch in the first place was because of Fred's strong complaint to me about how -- as I just said -- about how badly he was being treated.

And remember that all this was going on six to eight months before Frankel was due to take over. Those last six months were the worst six months I spent in my entire thirty years on the editorial board of the Times. They should really have been --

The best.