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editorial staff of the Times in '49. I had simply always, really from childhood, have been interested in conserving the natural environment. I think I probably in previous sessions we've gone into, under your questioning, my interest in environmental matters as a child?

As a child and at Princeton, yes.

As a youngster. I think I went into probably, as usual, too great length on the Hawk Mountain question and that whole business, we've talked about --

Yes.

Well, anyway, that's illustrative, I guess, of the fact that I was always interested in preservation of -- conservation of natural resources, primarily -- primarily of wildlife and of botanical -- trees and open country and all that sort of thing. So when I came onto the Times, any opportunity I had I would write editorials on whatever subject at hand, but it struck me very soon that as the Times seemed to be willing to run columns on other subjects that I felt were considerably less important -- I'm not sure [chuckling] if we had started the bridge column -- [laughter]

I'm not sure whether the bridge column had already started then, but in any case, I felt that the whole question of conservation of natural resources wasn't getting enough attention in the news columns of the Times, and I was trying to give it as much attention as I could in the editorial columns, but that wasn't enough, either. And so I had the idea that the Times really ought to have a column or someplace where important, where significant environmental news -- we never used the word “environment,” by the way, at that time.