The Kingdom and the Power

by Gay Talese

  Vanocur wrote good stories for The Times while on night rewrite and while on general assignments during the day, and he received by-lines; but none of the stories that he wrote in the newsroom between 1955 and 1956 were sufficiently dramatic to be splashed across the front page and gain the attention that might have propelled him toward the overseas assignment that he had hoped for. Catledge seemed to have forgotten all about him, and the only personal attention that he received from an influential editor was brief and meaningless: it occurred late one afternoon when Clifton Daniel, on his way to the men’s room, noticed Vanocur sitting behind his desk wearing one of his British suits, and with his brown suede British shoes propped up on the typewriter. Daniel stopped in the aisle, and from a distance of about twenty feet he focused on the shoes and the cut of the suit, recognizing them immediately as British-made—and, though Daniel said nothing, his mood suddenly seemed to drift and fade, perhaps back to some glorious yesteryear in his favorite city, London, and to fleeting recollections of that most adventurous time of his life.… Then Daniel stiffened a bit, looked away from Vanocur’s shoes, and continued on his way to the men’s room.

  Not long after that, Sander Vanocur, impatient with the pace of The Times, resigned and became a television reporter for NBC, and within a few years he was recognized as one of the very best in the nation.

  The years 1955 and 1956 were hardly ideal times for young reporters to be getting a start in the newsroom. Not only was the New York staff so tradition-bound that it would take Catledge several years to make an appreciable dent in its hardened habits, but The Times’ top management—including Catledge—were very distracted and disturbed in 1955 and 1956 by the intrusive tactics of a Senate subcommittee that was investigating communism in the press and seemed determined to concentrate on the former Communists who were on the payroll of The New York Times.

  The Senate investigation began in the summer of 1955 with one CBS correspondent’s admission that he had been a Communist spy, and it widened in December of 1955 when, before the start of secret hearings in New York, thirty-five subpoenas were issued—twenty-six of them to past or present employees of The Times. In January of 1956, before the start of public hearings in Washington, eighteen subpoenas were delivered—nine of them to Times employees, and two to individuals who had recently left The Times.

  In the history of the paper, there were few months more dismal than December, 1955, and January, 1956. When The Times had been scrutinized on other occasions, it could either ignore the issue or easily justify its position, but now it was not so invulnerable. The dynamics of McCarthyism were still pervasive in the land, and The Times did have among its reporters and copyreaders, and among its workers in the mechanical departments and other sections within its total employment of 4,000, a number of men who in the past had been members of the Communist party in America. Some had joined the party as students in the Nineteen-thirties, and had quit after a year or two. Some had been party members while working for other newspapers, and had resigned long before joining The Times. Others had been party members as recently as a few years ago, although all claimed to be nonmembers at this time. There was supposedly one copyreader, however, who had quit the party before joining The Times, then had rejoined the party—and one afternoon, after subpoenas had arrived in Catledge’s office, Catledge walked out into the newsroom to have a word with this copyreader, and discovered him editing a Times dispatch from Moscow.

  It was a strange, awkward, embarrassing time for the paper, one of suspicion and conflict, anger and compassion. There were Times staff members, political conservatives and superpatriots, who now deeply resented those who had been exposed as one-time party members, and as a result some personal friendships and even office courtesies were abruptly ended. There were other staff members who, while they privately abhorred McCarthyism, and while they deeply regretted the exposure of their colleagues, nonetheless were now a bit more cautious and remote in the newsroom when in the company of those who had been named. There were just as many—or more—Timesmen who did not cease being friends with the eight or ten employees on the third floor, or the various others throughout the building, who had been cited by the committee; if anything, friendships may have strengthened at this time, fortified by a determination to remain unintimidated by the witch-hunting tactics of a few subcommittee investigators, whose true purpose was being questioned by The Times’ top management, and whose methods had already revealed signs of carelessness. One day an investigator entered Catledge’s office with a subpoena for one “Willard Shelton.” Catledge shook his head, replying that The Times had no one by that name (although, to himself, Catledge remembered a Willard Shelton he had known on the Chicago Sun). Then the investigator, momentarily confused, asked, “Well, do you have anybody named Shelton on your staff?” Catledge said that there was a Robert Shelton—and then, to Catledge’s utter amazement, he saw the investigator erase Willard and write in Robert on the subpoena.

  The investigation was in some ways a sham, there seemed little doubt of that; and yet The Times could not obstruct the investigative process. And while The Times’ top executives and editors tried to remain calm and objective, assigning uncontroversial reporters each day to cover the subcommittee’s hearings fully and accurately—which was done—the internal repercussions were also felt whenever one of the exposed Timesmen would enter the newsroom and take his place at a copydesk or behind a typewriter. There would be a slight rustle of unnatural movement around him—a forced conviviality on the part of some colleagues, or a brief halt in conversation, or an expression of sympathy, or a conscious avoidance of any mention of the fact that The Times’ most recent edition had carried the testimony and a photograph of the Timesman who had just walked into the newsroom. In one way or another, the entire staff was touched by the inquiry, and the men who had been singled out felt the pressure from many directions. Two veteran reporters who had been listed, and who had appeared before the subcommittee, now went days without an assignment from the city desk. One reporter who had worked in the Washington bureau since 1947, and had covered many stories from the press table in the Senate chamber, was released by Reston and was sent to New York, where, for the next two years, he sat in the last row of the rewrite bank doing what was essentially a clerical job—assembling the daily news summary and index. Eventually, his penance paid, he regained his place as a by-line reporter—though never again in Washington—and he was also denied, years later in New York, a chief correspondent’s job for which he was qualified; and he was never completely forgiven by another former Communist in the newsroom for revealing to the FBI the names of party members who had worked on a Long Island newspaper between 1937 and 1939.

  On the highest levels of The Times—in the offices of Arthur Hays Sulzberger and Orvil Dryfoos, Charles Merz and John Oakes, Turner Catledge and James Reston, and others—there was considerable wrestling with the angels: How could The Times remain consistent with Ochs’s traditional patriotism and yet not overreact to the investigators and possibly violate the principles of individual civil liberties and freedoms that The Times had so clearly espoused for years on its editorial page? There was little doubt among top management that the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee’s investigation, headed by Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi, had singled out The New York Times precisely because of the vigor of its opposition to many of the things for which Senator Eastland (and his colleague, Senator William E. Jenner of Indiana, and the subcommittee’s counsel, Julien G. Sourwine of Nevada) stood—that is, because The Times had condemned segregation in Southern schools, had challenged the abusive methods employed by various Congressional committees, had denounced McCarthyism, had attacked the restrictions of the McCarran Immigration Act; because it had criticized a security system which concealed the accuser from his victim, and because it had insisted that the true spirit of American democracy demanded a scrupulous respect for the rights of even the lowliest individual.

  On the other hand, Sul
zberger recognized that the press was not sacrosanct, and was as properly subject to Congressional inquiry as any other institution in American life. Sulzberger himself, in his public speeches and statements within the office, said that he was a prejudiced witness for the capitalist system, and that he did not want a single Communist on his payroll, insisting that all employees who had been called by the subcommittee should cooperate, and that he hoped they would not plead the Fifth Amendment. The first two Times reporters who had been subpoenaed admitted that they had been members of the Communist party for a short time but had quit in the Nineteen-thirties when they saw that they had made a mistake. But the next witness, a copyreader, refused to reveal his past political background, and when he appeared before the subcommittee, he invoked the protection of the Fifth Amendment. Sulzberger fired him.

  His dismissal shocked some of the more liberal members of the staff, and it also brought a letter of protest from the American Civil Liberties Union on the grounds that invoking the Fifth Amendment is a Constitutional right and should not be in and of itself grounds for dismissal. The Times published the letter on its editorial page with Sulzberger’s reply:

  … I agree with you wholeheartedly that, particularly when freedoms are under attack, it is vitally important that Constitutional rights be upheld. These include not only the rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, but also the freedom of expression, which, as you point out, is the core of the First Amendment. It seems to me, however, that you have overlooked important consequences of this in your discussion.

  … Our willingness to trust our associates brings with it a corresponding duty on the part of those who are trusted. They owe candor to their colleagues and equal candor to the public. Those whose business it is to edit and report the news have greater responsibilities than those who follow the ordinary walks of life.…

  … Like any other citizen, a newspaper man has the undoubted right to assert his Constitutional privilege not to incriminate himself. But invocation of the Fifth Amendment places upon him a heavy burden of proof of his fitness to continue to hold a place of trust on the news or editorial staff of this newspaper. And it lays upon the newspaper an obligation to consider whether in view of all the facts, including the stand he has taken, he still is qualified to hold his position. Nowhere is it written that a person claiming protection against self-incrimination should be continued in these sensitive departments where trust and confidence are the tools of a good workman.

  This letter was praised in some quarters, denounced in others, and it was very unsatisfactory to a few of the very liberal editorial writers such as John Oakes, who objected to Sulzberger’s position against the Fifth Amendment. But Sulzberger persisted in his thinking, and in late November of 1955, as more Timesmen revealed their intentions to not cooperate fully, Sulzberger and Dryfoos had a draft of a statement written to justify the dismissal of future Timesmen who invoked the Fifth Amendment: The draft, dated November 22, 1955, was a form press release that began:

  —–was dismissed from the news (Sunday news) department of The New York Times because, while working in such a sensitive position, he failed fully to disclose his past association with the Communist Party to a duly constituted committee of the United States Senate. By invoking the Fifth Amendment, Mr.—–exercised a Constitutional right. He failed, however, in our judgment, to give sufficient consideration to the specific obligation resting upon newspapers by reason of the guarantees under the First Amendment. A community which is assured a free press is entitled to a frank press. In this instance frankness was not forthcoming.

  When John Oakes received a copy of this statement for his opinion, he scribbled across the top of it a sentence to Orvil Dryfoos—“Orv: I don’t think this is at all adequate. JBO.” Oakes, though a member of the Editorial Board, was years away from replacing Charles Merz as the editor of the editorial page; still, Oakes had written most of the anti-McCarthyism editorials for The Times, and he was never hesitant about expressing his views to Merz, or to Dryfoos, who was then a vice-president, or to the publisher himself, Sulzberger. On January 2, 1956, Oakes wrote Sulzberger:

  Dear Arthur:

  Since our conversation a few weeks ago re Times policy on Fifth Amendment cases, I’ve been doing a good deal more thinking on the subject. I still don’t see how we can take a position automatically firing Fifth Amendment people and at the same time remain consistent with our own editorial view as expressed as recently as this spring.

  What to me is much more serious, I don’t see how we can do this and avoid the charge that we have knuckled under to the Eastlands. That is what really worries me most of all.

  I am very much concerned that anything we write in the future on basic civil liberties and Bill of Rights problems will be weighed against our own actions and statements in this critical situation. Therefore, much as I favor making public our views about the committee and its investigation, I urge that we do not irrevocably commit ourselves on any Fifth Amendment position. If we handle each case on its merits, and if we make no declarations of Fifth Amendment policies, I think we will be in an infinitely stronger position and will save ourselves much future embarrassment.

  JBO

  Turner Catledge was personally acquainted with Mississippi’s Senator James O. Eastland. They were not close friends, but Catledge had known of the Eastland family from his boyhood days in Mississippi, and Senator Eastland’s father, Woods Eastland, had been the district attorney in Catledge’s district, and Catledge had regarded Woods Eastland in those days as a kind of hero. During a brief period when Turner Catledge thought that he might wish to become a lawyer, and when he wanted to conjure up an impressive figure that he might emulate, he invariably thought of Woods Eastland. While James O. Eastland had never stirred Catledge’s fancy in quite that way, Catledge was sure that he could go down to Washington during the investigation and have a warm, personal chat with the Senator and perhaps discover what it was that Eastland hoped to achieve by giving so much attention to The Times, and to cooperate in any way that he could.

  Catledge arrived in Eastland’s office on a Sunday afternoon, and the Senator was affable and smiling, and he took Catledge’s hand and said, with sincerity, “Hell, Turner, I’m not trying to get The Times.”

  “Well, what are you after then?” Catledge asked.

  “Well,” Senator Eastland said, shrugging his shoulders, “nothing, really.”

  And there was very little else that Eastland would add—it turned out to be a rambling, smiling, unproductive afternoon for Catledge, with Eastland indicating that he did not know what was going on, and that it was the subcommittee’s counsel, Julien G. Sourwine, who was spearheading the investigation. But when James Reston later interviewed Sourwine while writing a piece for The Times—describing the counsel as “squat, soft-spoken”—Sourwine insisted that he had never done anything without the permission of Senator Eastland, and certainly had never issued any subpoenas without authorization. Catledge did not really know what to think after concluding his talk with Eastland, except to remind himself that the Eastlands were planter types from the Delta, and in Mississippi it was said by some Mississippians that Delta people were a most peculiar breed—they were property people, shifty as the seasonal cycles they lived by, social people who did not want to be caught treading on anyone’s toes, oblique people who talked one way, acted another, and were hard to know—or so it was said.

  Those who knew Catledge during this period thought that he was becoming hard to know. He was often remote and vague. He had been separated from his wife in 1948 and was spending a good deal of time in Sardi’s bar, so much in fact that his picture was soon hanging on the wall and his name was on the menu (“Veal Cutlet Catledge”); and now, in 1955, he revealed to his friends a deeper sense of frustration and failure, and once he told them that he thought he might be replaced as the managing editor.

  If Arthur Hays Sulzberger had ever given consideration to this, he kept it to himself. The only obvious change
in Sulzberger’s attitude now seemed to be his decision to harden The Times’ position with regards to the Eastland subcommittee, and to take a somewhat softer line on the Fifth Amendment—although a second Times copyreader had since been fired, and an assistant to the Sunday “Book Review” editor had resigned under pressure, after seeking protection under that amendment.

  But the opinion of John Oakes as expressed in his earlier memo to Sulzberger—“… If we handle each case on its merits, and if we make no declarations of Fifth Amendment policies …”—seemed to have influenced Sulzberger, Dryfoos, and Merz. And in a long editorial in The Times in January of 1956, Merz wrote:

  … In the case of those employees who have testified to some Communist association in the past, or who have pleaded the Fifth Amendment for reasons of their own, it will be our policy to judge each case on its own merits, in the light of each individual’s responsibilities in our organization and of the degree to which his relations with this newspaper entitle him to possess our confidence.

  Then, with an emotion that does not often penetrate The Times, Charles Merz ended his editorial with a paragraph that Sulzberger particularly approved of:

  We cannot speak unequivocally for the long future. But we can have faith. And our faith is strong that long after Senator Eastland and his present subcommittee are forgotten, long after segregation has lost its final battle in the South, long after all that was known as McCarthyism is a dim, unwelcome memory, long after the last Congressional committee has learned that it cannot tamper successfully with a free press, The New York Times will still be speaking for the men who make it, and only for the men who make it, and speaking, without fear or favor, the truth as it sees it.

  11

  In the spring of 1957, in a trip that would produce both a journalistic coup and a wonderful excuse for being away from the office, Turner Catledge went to Russia. He had no idea beforehand that Nikita Khrushchev would grant him an exclusive interview, but the Soviet Union was still following its so-called peace offensive—“Party-Going in Moscow Is New Party Line,” read a recent headline—and so Catledge, reacting instinctively, sent cablegrams to Khrushchev and Bulganin, to Zhukov, Molotov, Gromyko, and others; and on the evening of April 28, he boarded a plane in New York for Copenhagen, then switched to a Russian plane, and landed the next day in Moscow. He was met at the airport by The Times’ bureau chief, William Jorden, who told him that a big reception, given by the Japanese Ambassador in honor of the Emperor’s birthday, was being held in a Moscow hotel. So they went—and it was there that Catledge met Khrushchev.