The Kingdom and the Power (39 page)

They could not believe it. Berger had been a
Times
man since 1928, and except for one year at
The New Yorker
between 1937 and 1938, he had been the star of the staff, a tall, thin, shy, gentle man with a long nose and soft inquiring dark eyes who sat in the front row and talked to the copyboys, clerks, and reporters who usually stood around his desk; he would regale them with humorous stories, would advise them on the
Magazine
pieces or “Topics of The Times” they were trying to write, and he would listen patiently while they spoke of personal problems. And then, as his deadline approached, he would turn to his typewriter and, within a half-hour, he would produce a dramatic 1,000-word article about a gangland murder that he had covered earlier in the day, or a poignant side-walk
scene that he had observed while coming to work; or he might produce a prose poem to New York:

There had practically been a work stoppage in the newsroom in 1932 when Berger’s stories on the Al Capone tax trial in Chicago began to arrive, page by page, on the telegraph machines: copyboys would grab the pages, reading them as they slowly walked to the copydesk; then the copyreaders would read and reread every word of the courtroom drama and the dialogue of Al Capone; finally the editors would take their turn, being as absorbed as the others before sending the story up to the printers on the floor above.

When Berger wrote similar pieces about the tax trial of Dutch Schultz, even Schultz read them with grudging admiration, although he was offended that Berger had quoted one source as saying that Schultz was a “pushover for a blonde.” When the gangster next saw Berger, he called him over and complained about that line.

“But it’s the truth, isn’t it?” Berger asked.

“Yes,” Schultz said, “but what kind of language is that to use in
The New York Times
?”

In 1947, when the first American war dead, in 6,248 coffins, were transported by ship from Europe into New York harbor, Berger produced a journalistic classic—as he did in 1949 when a war veteran named Howard Unruh went berserk in the streets of Camden, New Jersey, and with a pistol shot thirteen people before surrendering to the police. Berger had spent six hours retracing Unruh’s footsteps, had interviewed fifty people who had seen parts of the rampage, and then he sat down and reconstructed the whole scene in a 4,000-word article in two and one-half hours:

Meyer Berger won the Pulitzer Prize for that story, and he sent the $1,000 prize money to Unruh’s mother. Berger then spent most of the next two years researching and writing the official history of
The Times
, which in 1951 was marking its hundredth anniversary. This was perhaps the most difficult assignment of his life, not because the task was so formidable for his great reporting talent, but because as the “official” book on
The Times
it had to be approved by various members of the Ochs, Sulzberger, and Adler families, as well as by some senior executives, and it seemed virtually impossible to please them all. There were many deletions and revisions on the book, and when it was published in 1951, and in spite of its critical and commercial success, Berger confessed to a few friends that he sometimes wished his name were not on the book’s cover.

And now, in the summer of 1954, after having written his “About New York” column in
The Times
for more than a year, he was again depressed by a few negative reactions to it that he had received from the publisher’s office and from an editor in the newsroom. Finally the editor himself felt compelled to record Berger’s statements about quitting and to send copies of the memo to other editors and also to the publisher’s office:

Berger did not quit. He continued with his column through July and August, then he took a month’s vacation. He returned, somewhat refreshed, but later he again began to complain about the number of changes that he had been ordered to make in his column, and of instances where his column had been killed entirely, requiring that he insert another in its place. He continued to write the column, but said that he did not really like it. He would have preferred to be what he had always been—a reporter.

In the fall of 1954, with the death of Anne O’Hare McCormick, Cyrus Sulzberger took over her three-times-a-week column on the editorial page. This was a full-time job and it meant that Sulzberger could no longer devote time to influencing the foreign staff, for which Catledge was thankful, and Catledge was also pleased to announce within the office that the title “chief foreign correspondent,’ which Sulzberger had held for ten years, would forthwith be terminated. It was also Catledge’s present hope that his foreign-news editor in New York, Emanuel R. Freedman, would become established as the one and only channel through which foreign correspondents should deal with the paper. But some of the correspondents continued either through habit or design to write to Cyrus Sulzberger, or to the managing editor’s office, or to the publisher himself. A principal offender was a correspondent in the Far East named Greg MacGregor, who one day received a cable:
“CANNOT UNDERSTAND WHY YOU CONTINUALLY BYPASSING THIS DESK STOP PLEASE EXPLAIN STOP FREEDMAN.”

MacGregor was confused by the cable, and when he met up with a friend, Keyes Beech of the
Chicago Daily News
, who had recently visited New York, MacGregor asked if he had ever heard of anyone named Freedman on
The Times
.

“He’s your boss, you goddamned fool,” Beech said. “He’s the foreign editor.”

After a bit of research, MacGregor discovered that Freedman had been the foreign editor since 1948. MacGregor tried to reply to Freedman’s cable as diplomatically as he could but he suspected that this misunderstanding would not easily be rectified, and, in retrospect, he was sure that he had been right.

Although MacGregor had for years sent photographs to Markel’s Sunday department from the Far East—such photographs as battle scenes in Korea, or activities in Formosa, or pictures from other places where he was working as a reporter—MacGregor received a letter from Freedman one day that said, in effect, “Do not forget that your paycheck comes from the third floor.” The Sunday department is on the eighth floor. So MacGregor stopped sending pictures to the Sunday department. But while in New York on home leave in 1955, MacGregor was seen by Markel in the
Times
building and was asked why he had ceased to submit pictures. MacGregor said that there was a reason, but that he would rather not discuss it. Markel quickly assured him that anything said would remain confidential, and he pressed for the explanation. After MacGregor had given it, Markel remained silent for a moment, then looking at MacGregor, he asked, “Do you think you’re working for Manny Freedman or for
The New York Times
?”

MacGregor replied that he felt exactly the same way, but he asked that Markel look at the situation realistically—he had
already
had a few misunderstandings with Freedman, and he did not want to risk having another one. Markel reassured MacGregor that there would be no problem, adding that he would be having lunch with Freedman in a day or two, that he would broach the matter very discreetly, and that he was confident that MacGregor’s expert photography would again be available to the Sunday
Magazine
and the “Review” section.

When MacGregor next saw Freedman a few days later, he looked very dour. Freedman waved him over, saying, “Ah, about that letter
you got—I think that you have misunderstood. Or maybe I did not put it just right. I just meant that you should never sacrifice time from your regular news coverage to go out and shoot pictures for the
Magazine
. But of course, we’re all working for the same paper.”

As Freedman, his eyes looking down at his desk, continued to mumble and shuffle papers, MacGregor interrupted to express the hope that there were no hard feelings. Absolutely not, Freedman said, no hard feelings—but MacGregor did not really think that Freedman sounded as if he meant it. (MacGregor later learned from a friend in the newsroom that Markel had taken the issue up with Sulzberger before mentioning it to Freedman.)

A week later, MacGregor visited the Washington bureau, it being the practice then, as now, for foreign correspondents on home leave to spend time working or observing others at work in the major news departments within the
Times
building, and also to visit the bureau in Washington briefly. The Washington bureau chief was now James Reston, and in the course of a pleasant conversation Reston suggested that MacGregor spend about a month in the capital to get the feel of America again after being away so long in the Orient. MacGregor thought that this was a fine idea, and when Freedman called a few days later to ask when MacGregor would be leaving for Singapore, MacGregor informed him of Reston’s plan, to which Freedman asked, “Who is running the foreign desk, Scotty or me?” MacGregor relayed this to Reston, who later called Arthur Hays Sulzberger and also Freedman. Reston then told MacGregor, “Everything’s okay, just carry on.”

MacGregor remained in Washington for the next three weeks, during which time Reston had lined up a number of appointments for him with government officials, and MacGregor felt that his time in Washington had been both enjoyable and profitable. After arriving in Singapore, MacGregor made out his expense account to cover his home leave, including the per diem charges for his stay in Washington, and mailed it to Freedman. Weeks later, MacGregor received a letter informing him that his Washington expenses had not been allowed. This item represented between $400 and $500. MacGregor wisely decided not to press the issue at this time, but rather to wait until he was again in New York to discuss it personally with Catledge. This he did in 1960, and he was finally reimbursed, although his relations with the foreign desk had now deteriorated beyond repair. After a few years in the newsroom as a general-assignment reporter and a rewrite man on the late-night
shift, MacGregor resigned from
The Times
to become editor of an English-language publication that specializes in the coverage of South American affairs.

As soon as Catledge was free to do so, he began making trips abroad and spending time with foreign correspondents, and he frequently was amazed at how well they lived, the number of servants they had, the size of their homes.

In Mexico he visited the young bureau chief, Sydney Gruson, who explained at the outset, “Okay, Turner, while you’re here we can go off each morning and see people, and I’ll make phone calls, and I’ll pretend that this is the way I really work here. Or,” Gruson said, eyes lighting up, “we can do what I really do here. I own five race horses, I see them run two or three times a week, and I play golf three or four times a week. And, well, how do you want to do it, Turner?”

“Don’t be silly,” Catledge said, “we’ll do it the way you always do it.”

During the next week they had a magnificent time. They went to several parties, they bet on Gruson’s horses, losing every time, and went to the bullfights, where Gruson had arranged for a bull to be dedicated in honor of Catledge.

Ten days later, after Catledge had returned to New York, Gruson received word that his Mexican assignment was over. He was to report back to the New York office, and some months later he was reassigned to Prague—with Catledge maintaining that his Mexico trip had nothing to do with it.

Sydney Gruson did extremely well during his assignment in Eastern Europe, and his coverage of the anti-Stalinist revolt in Poland was so outstanding that he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He did not get it, but he did receive from Clifton Daniel, who by then was an assistant to Catledge, a short note in May of 1957: