Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

John B. OakesJohn B. Oakes
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 512

Oakes:

No, at that time it was editor. No, you're quite right. At that time, the title was editor, which was of course a much more grandiloquent title than mere editor of the editorial page, which it later became. I think we discussed that.

Q:

Not on tape.

Oakes:

Didn't we? Oh. It later became -- but the function was exactly the same because Charlie Merz as editor, which he was from that period, which must have been 1935, I think -- I think it was when he was named editor by Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who had just become publisher. I think that was '35. And, of course, Charlie Merz remained editor until I succeeded him in 1961.

But in any case, I started to say that Krock, I believe, had not only expected but certainly wanted to be named editor at that time, as successor to the retiring -- I think his title was acting editor -- Dr. John [Huston] Finley, who was a very distinguished educator and had previously been president of NYU or City College.

In any case, Arthur Hays Sulzberger had the opportunity of naming a new full-fledged editor, and he chose Charlie Merz, whom he knew very well and who had been if not chief editorial writer certainly an editorial writer on the New York World and a very good writer and had made a name for himself as a newspaper man who had worked with Walter Lippmann years and years before, in connection with the Russian revolution, commenting on that, and so on.

Krock wanted to be named editor, but instead of that he was named chief of the Washington bureau. He was already a quite prominent reporter or perhaps columnist even by that time, I





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help