The Kingdom and the Power (47 page)

At City College, Rosenthal worked on the campus newspaper. He did not plan to become a journalist, having nothing so precise in mind. But he did well on the paper, and when the student who was the CCNY correspondent for the
Herald Tribune
was drafted by the Army, Rosenthal took over that position. Primarily because of the draft, there was a rapid turnover among students holding these campus correspondents’ jobs for metropolitan newspapers, but Rosenthal, who was 4-F because of his illness, was not affected. When
The Times
’ correspondent left, Rosenthal quit the
Tribune
for
The Times
, which paid a few dollars more—twelve dollars a week—and on a winter afternoon in 1943, Rosenthal, nervous and awed, entered
The Times
’ newsroom for the first time. He walked up the aisle and sat at an empty desk near the back, removing from his coat pocket some notes pertaining to campus activities. But he was so petrified that he could not begin to use the typewriter; he merely sat upright and stared around the big room at all the people who seemed quietly preoccupied and distant. Then he was startled by the soft voice of a stranger behind him, a lean
and homely-looking man wearing glasses, asking, “What’s your name?”

“Abe Rosenthal.”

“What do you do?” the man asked pleasantly.

“I’m the City College correspondent.”

“Do you need paper to type on?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know where we keep the paper around here?”

“No.”

“It’s over there in that box,” the man said, and then he proceeded to walk down the aisle, to grab a batch of paper, and to place it on Rosenthal’s desk.

“Do you know how to slug a story?”

“No,” Rosenthal said.

The man showed Rosenthal where his name should go, at the upper left-hand corner, with a single word to describe the subject of the story.

“Do you know what you do after you finish your story?”

“No,” Rosenthal said.

“You give it to that copyboy standing over there.” Rosenthal nodded.

“By the way,” the man said, “my name is Mike Berger.”

“Thank you, Mr. Berger.”

“Mike,” the man said.

As was the practice with other campus correspondents, copyboys, and clerks who hoped to one day become
Times
reporters, Abe Rosenthal attended a church service each Sunday morning so that he could write a brief account of the sermon for the Monday edition of
The Times
. Sometimes these stories by Rosenthal and about eight others would fill more than a half-page of
The Times
with pithy exhortations and homilies that hardly anyone read except the preachers who delivered them, and the young aspiring journalists who reported them. While these stories, each of which rarely exceeded five or six paragraphs in length, never carried by-lines, their authorship was known to
The Times
’ religious-news editor, who made the assignments, and who was alert for any signs of irreverence that the church coverage might reveal.

Many of the men and women who later became
Times
reporters broke into print initially by covering Sunday sermons. They were paid about three dollars per story, and this amount was to include the cost of transportation to and from the church, and also any donation that they might feel compelled to drop into a collection basket. The tradition was to deposit a quarter in the first collection, and to dodge the second.

While the competent coverage of a Sunday sermon was just one of many preliminary tests confronting an aspiring
Times
man, and was not in itself regarded as singularly significant as the writing of a “Topics of The Times” or a short editorial—which paid respectively $25 and $15—it was also true that the
incompetent
coverage of a sermon was very significant. If a young man could not reliably cover a church sermon, the editors reasoned, he could probably not reliably cover anything—which was sometimes the case. The misspelling of a pastor’s name, the misquoting of the sermon, or the misinterpretation of the message were all irredeemable sins. There was one
Times
copyboy who, hoping to cover a sermon without attending the church service—thus avoiding the collection plate—arrived at the church a half-hour early, walked to the rectory door on the side of the building, and rang the bell, planning to ask the pastor for an advance text of the sermon. But the bell that was rung was not the doorbell; it was the fire alarm. And its sudden clangor interrupted a Sunday school class, sending children scurrying into the street; and it provoked a pastoral protest that started the young
Times
man’s career in reverse.

Such indignation as this was never caused by Rosenthal’s coverage. He was diligent and cautious, determined to let no incident stall his progression to the reportorial staff. After he had done several outstanding articles about campus life at City College and dozens of impeccable sermons, and after seeing that his work during his first year as a correspondent was hardly ever changed by the copydesk, Rosenthal summoned the courage one day to approach the city editor and ask about his promotion to the staff. Rosenthal’s inquiry had been prompted by his awareness that a girl who had been the Columbia College correspondent was in possession of a reporter’s press card, a fact that he discovered inadvertently after her handbag had fallen open to the floor. Rosenthal’s competitive spirit was stirred by the sight of her press card, and he sat silently at his desk for a while watching the city editor’s
every move, waiting for the perfect moment to approach, being both timid and aroused. Then, as the city editor, David H. Joseph, stood and was putting on his coat and was about to leave the newsroom, Rosenthal sprung from his chair, rushed down the aisle toward Joseph, and unhesitatingly asked the question: when would he be promoted? David Joseph’s reaction was neither one of shock, surprise, nor even great interest. It was as if the question were too trifling to justify Joseph’s delay in getting home to dinner. “You want to go on the staff,” Joseph said, casually, “okay—you can go on the staff.” Joseph then buttoned his coat, turned, and left the room, leaving Rosenthal frozen in a state of disbelief and ecstasy.

At twenty-one, he was a
Times
man, and one of the first things that he did was to quit college. He had only four credits to go for a degree, but he now felt so totally involved with
The Times
that his relationship with City College seemed an intrusion. Years later, after Rosenthal had established himself as perhaps the brightest young man on the New York staff, he was cited as a distinguished alumnus of City College, and one of the deans requested that he address the student body. When Rosenthal explained that he had never graduated, the dean said that a degree could be arranged if Rosenthal would submit a paper. But Rosenthal never found the time to write it, being so busy covering daily news from the United Nations, and so finally the dean asked Rosenthal to submit one of his magazine articles, which Rosenthal did—a
Collier’s
magazine piece about the United Nations—and, with that, he received his degree.

At this time, in 1950, Rosenthal’s by-line from the U.N. was regularly on page one. He had begun writing about United Nations activities in 1946 when Turner Catledge, wanting to see a feature story written about the New York City life of a U.N. delegate, presented the idea to the city editor, and Rosenthal drew the assignment. The subject of the feature was to be Andrei Gromyko of the Soviet Union, and Rosenthal trailed Gromyko for an entire day, jumping into taxicabs to follow Gromyko’s limousine no matter where it went. Luckily for Rosenthal’s story, Gromyko—who seemed unaware that Rosenthal was following him—took a sightseeing tour during the afternoon, encircling most of Manhattan while Rosenthal pursued him in a cab and charted the entire excursion, observing where Gromyko stopped his limousine and what New York sites seemed to attract him. Rosenthal’s story, a well-written descriptive account, delighted Catledge. It
was given a big play in
The Times
, complete with a map that Bernstein had ordered to show exactly where Gromyko had traveled, and this article led to Rosenthal’s being assigned to
The Times
’ bureau at the United Nations.

The United Nations then, early in 1946, was meeting in temporary quarters on the campus of Hunter College in the Bronx, a subway stop from where Rosenthal was then living with his mother. It was an ideal assignment—
The Times
gave almost unlimited space to the daily activities of the U.N., meaning that there was adequate room for feature articles and pictures as well as news stories and texts, and Rosenthal was fortunate, too, in having the freewheeling, informal William H. Lawrence as his bureau chief. Lawrence allowed Rosenthal to handle many of the lead stories and also to write impressionistic pieces about this rather bizarre Bronx scene of flapping flags and Brooks suits, wide Communist trousers, and silk Hindu saris. The United Nations populace seemed much more united on the Bronx campus, and later at Lake Success on Long Island, than it would seem after it had moved in 1951 into its present headquarters, the glass skyscraper and smooth complex along the East River in Manhattan. The skyscraper would bring verticality to the U.N., would divide it into a thousand tiny compartments, would section off these people who had come to New York from all sections of the world seeking unity. But in the Bronx and Long Island, before the Manhattan structures were opened, the U.N. was horizontally spread through several smaller buildings, and the delegates, their aides, and the press were forced to do a great deal of walking from place to place—and there was much more mingling and meeting along the paths, streets, and steps, and the U.N. seemed to Rosenthal to be a spontaneous and convivial place. The Security Council in 1946 even held some of its sessions in a Bronx gymnasium, and
The Times
’ bureau in those days was set up in what had been a hair-drying room for girls. It was here that Rosenthal first met James Reston.

Rosenthal was then twenty-four, and Reston, at thirty-seven, was the most admired and envied member of the staff. Reston seemed to Rosenthal to have everything—success, fame, and he radiated health; he walked with the bouncing step of a winner, slightly forward and on his toes. He had good complexion, even teeth, a full head of dark hair—a college athlete who had remained in shape, a onetime golfer now playing for higher stakes. It was said that during
the previous year, in 1945, Reston had persuaded the powerful Senator Arthur Vandenburg to influence the Republican party away from its isolationist policy. In the same year, Reston had distinguished himself while covering the United Nations conference in San Francisco, and in 1944 he had won his first Pulitzer for his reporting of the Dumbarton Oaks conference, which established the foundation for the United Nations. It was before that conference in Georgetown—attended by the United States, Britain, Russia, and Nationalist China—that Reston had quietly obtained the position papers of the Allied powers, and during the meetings he was able to dip into his file and to write knowledgeably about the private sessions. Not only were Reston’s journalistic rivals upset by his series of exclusives, but many diplomats were dismayed. The Russians suspected that the Americans had leaked the information to Reston, while the Americans believed that he had gotten the data from a friend in the British Embassy. After a note of caution had been sent to the British, and after the F.B.I. had begun to investigate, the British Ambassador, Lord Halifax, refused to see Reston even though the two were friends and the British had leaked nothing. Lord Halifax explained to Reston: “I’m not going to keep your friendship at the price of losing that of the American Secretary of State.” Reston’s source had actually been from within the Chinese delegation, which had been displeased with the political arrangements at the conference, and was therefore willing to cooperate with
The Times
—confirming one of Reston’s lessons to journalists: “You should always look around for the guys who are unhappy.”

Rosenthal spent eight years covering United Nations activities. He wrote hundreds of articles about the great issues and debates, the power blocs and vetoes, the walkouts and reconciliations; he wrote about Trygve Lie and Gromyko, Anthony Eden and Bernard Baruch, the pageantry and “little people” at the U.N.—the linguistic shoeshine stand, the barber who knew the hair styles of all nations—and he wrote about a delegate from India whom he particularly admired, Sir Benegal Rau. Then one day Sir Benegal lied to him. It was in response to a very delicate question, the sort of lie that every top diplomat in the world has undoubtedly told at one time or other in the name of national security. But for young Rosenthal it was a new and disillusioning
experience—the distinguished and genteel Sir Benegal, lying like any political ward heeler in the Bronx—and Rosenthal bitterly approached him and told him what he thought. The Indian delegate was indeed sorry and somewhat touched, and he tried to explain, “But, Abe, it was in the best interest of my country to lie to you.”

“Yes,” Rosenthal replied, sharply, “and it is in the best interest of my newspaper not to ask you questions again.” Then Rosenthal continued, “Why didn’t you at least answer my question with a ‘No comment’?”

“Because,” Sir Benegal said, “you would have then known it was the truth.”

Sir Benegal was undoubtedly right about that. But Rosenthal would never again be so trusting of a news source, although his friendship with Sir Benegal was soon restored, and from then on, when Sir Benegal did not wish to reply, he merely answered, “No comment.”

Eight years of covering the United Nations was too long a period for one assignment; but for some unaccountable reason, though he often tried, Rosenthal was not able to obtain a transfer to a
Times
bureau overseas. It was as if someone were keeping him off the overseas staff, although he could imagine no reason for this, and it did not bother him during his early years because there was great variety and excitement at the United Nations. Sometimes after a full day of listening to foreign languages and accents, and seeing the various costumes and reporting the speeches and debates concerning distant discord, Rosenthal felt that he was indeed overseas in Cyprus or Rhodesia or Pakistan—or India, where he especially wished to be. India then had an interesting delegation at the U.N., not only Sir Benegal but many others, and Rosenthal was drawn to them from the beginning, and he became increasingly infatuated with their history and culture, their social style and religion, their political relationships with Pakistan and Nepal—in fact, the very names of the cities in that part of the world conjured up for Rosenthal the sound of bells and exotic sights.
Bangalore. Bombay. Calcutta. Katmandu. Ootacamund. Travancore. The Khyber Pass
. When Rosenthal finally became
The Times
’ correspondent in India in 1954, ten years after he had been promoted to the staff, he would on one occasion travel more than 1, 500 miles just to file a story that would have the dateline:
At the Khyber Pass
. And years after doing that—after
he had left India and had enlarged his reputation in Poland—Rosenthal would finally discover why it had taken him so long to become a foreign correspondent; and the disclosure would shock him.