The Kingdom and the Power (55 page)

Punch Sulzberger received his Bachelor of Arts degree from
Columbia in 1951, and then he joined
The Times
as a cub reporter in the newsroom, where he quickly made what was considered a horrible mistake. Assigned to a banquet with instructions to report what was said there, Sulzberger unfortunately was away from his table and in the men’s room when it was announced that a substitute speaker would deliver the text instead of the scheduled speaker, who was unavoidably absent. Sulzberger returned in time to hear the speech, quoting from it in the short article that he wrote for the next morning’s
Times
, but he did not realize that the scheduled speaker was absent. When
The Times
was informed of the error, and was obliged to print a correction, the city editor, Robert Garst, sent for Sulzberger and lectured him in a stern, grim manner worthy of Rossides.

During the Korean War, Sulzberger’s unit was recalled. After he had earned a commission and had attended the Armed Forces Information School at Fort Slocum, New York, Sulzberger served in Korea as an assistant public information officer with the First Marine Division. He returned to the United States to work in the office of the legislative assistant to the commandant in Washington, and later in 1952 he was released with the rank of first lieutenant and he resumed his newspaper training.

He was now twenty-six, considerably more mature and poised, well liked around the newsroom, eager to learn about journalism. And he would learn a good deal during the next few years, but he would never become a top reporter, lacking qualities that are essential and rarely cultivated by such men as himself, the properly reared sons of the rich. Prying into other people’s affairs, chasing after information, waiting outside the doors of private meetings for official statements is no life for the scion of a newspaper-owning family. It is undignified, too alien to a refined upbringing. The son of a newspaper owner may indulge in reporting for a while, regarding it as part of his management training, a brief fling with romanticism, but he is not naturally drawn to it.

The reportorial ranks are dominated by men from the lower middle class. It is they who possess the drive, patience, and persistence to succeed as reporters; to them reporting is a vehicle to a better life. In one generation, if their by-lines become well known, they may rise from the simplicity and obscurity of their childhood existence to the inner circles of the exclusive. They may gain influence with the President, friendship with the Rockefellers, a frontrow seat in the arenas of social and political power. From these positions
they might not only witness, but influence, the events of their time—as did Reston, the son of poor Scottish immigrants; as did Krock and Catledge, Daniel and Wicker, the sons of the rural South; as did A. M. Rosenthal and dozens of other Jewish Americans whose forebears escaped the ghettos of Europe.

Not only on
The Times
, but on other newspapers, the news staffs were largely populated by products of the lower middle class—by liberal Jews and less liberal Irish Catholics from the North, by progressive Protestants from the South and Midwest; and, not unexpectedly, by relatively few Italo-Americans. The immigrants from Italy took longer to become familiar with the English language and its literature, as did other ethnic groups to whom the English language was difficult; they did not produce many newspaper reporters, except in the category of nonwriting “legmen” or district men in the police “shacks.” Negroes were only tokenly represented in the newsroom for a number of reasons—they lacked the education or incentive, the encouragement or opportunity, or some combination of all these. On
The Times
’ staff, there was often only one Negro reporter, rarely more than two. Conversely, nearly every one of
The Times
’ elevator operators was a Negro, smiling plantation types in uniform, a hiring practice that had begun with Ochs, who was a conventional Southerner on the issue of race.

The fact that most newspaper reporters descended from lower-middle-class whites did not mean a total absence of the sons of the wealthy and privileged; but few of them became outstanding reporters. The job seemed almost antipathetic to their nature. They found newspaper reporting interesting, as did John F. Kennedy, but not for very long. If they did not crave by-lines to satisfy their need for a name, having already a family name that guaranteed special considerations, then there was little inclination toward a reporting career except if they liked the irregular life or regarded journalism as an important public service or an instrument for social reform. But the rich could perhaps more adequately satisfy their social conscience and encourage change by buying a newspaper and controlling the editorials—or by entering political life and becoming a reform candidate or a financial supporter of such candidates. But as reporters their privileged past was no asset, and few of them could compete favorably with the hungrier newsmen with more keenly developed instincts—a critical eye, a cynicism and skepticism based on firsthand experience,
a total commitment to their craft because it was all that they had. The best reporters, even when not on assignment, were always working. In the middle of a crowd they felt apart, detached observers, outsiders. They remained subconsciously alert for the overheard quote, the usable line, the odd fact or happening that might make a story. They reacted immediately to events in ways that Punch Sulzberger and Orvil Dryfoos—who had also worked briefly as a
Times
reporter early in his career—would not.

In 1955, Punch Sulzberger, after a year on the
Milwaukee Journal
, was back on
The Times
and working as a reporter in the Paris bureau. One day in June of 1955 he was attending the automobile race at Le Mans. He was not assigned to cover it, nor was any
Times
man—it was not then the practice of
The Times
to send staff reporters to many European sports events. Suddenly, one of the drivers lost control of his car. The vehicle jumped the road, went spinning through the air, and plowed into a section of spectators. Eighty-three persons were killed. Sulzberger saw the accident and was horrified by the sight. But it never occurred to him to call
The Times
.

Sulzberger was returned to the New York office later that year to become an assistant to his father. He was now separated from his wife, Barbara, and he was spending considerable time in the company of Turner Catledge, who was also separated, and with other Catledge cronies who were either having marital difficulties or were so happily married that they could take liberties with their wives, staying out drinking in Sardi’s bar or in Catledge’s little “club” behind his office on the third floor. Catledge’s circle of
Times
men during these years included Joseph Alduino,
The Times
’ controller, and Irvin Taubkin from promotion, both of whom had marriage problems; and also Nat Goldstein, the circulation manager, whose tolerant wife never counted on his appearances at home. Catledge also enjoyed the company of several actors whom he had met around Sardi’s—Robert Preston, David Wayne, and Martin Gabel.

Catledge had a very paternal way with young Sulzberger without ever being condescending. He gave advice willingly, but Sulzberger made his own decisions. And this warm relationship
would continue through most of the next decade, although their drinking pattern would be altered considerably after they had met the women who would become their second wives. Catledge met Mrs. Abby Ray Izard, a widow, at an editors’ convention in 1957, and Punch Sulzberger met a striking brunette divorcée, Carol Fox Fuhrman, at a New York dinner party in 1956.

The party was in the home of Orvil Dryfoos’ brother Hugh, on Park Avenue. Hugh Dryfoos had first noticed Mrs. Fuhrman at a beach club in suburban New York. She was sitting in the sand with her parents and her young daughter when Dryfoos, a friendly, untimid man, approached her, introduced himself, and engaged her in conversation. Dryfoos’ blond wife, Joan, was then sleeping on the beach, although she would wake up in time to join her husband and receive from him an introduction to the brunette.

Later in New York—after Punch Sulzberger had said that he would be attending the Dryfoos’ dinner party without a date—Joan Dryfoos decided to invite Carol Fuhrman. Sulzberger and Mrs. Fuhrman got along quite well, and he drove her home that night. Weeks later, Sulzberger invited the Dryfoos’ to a restaurant, and they were surprised and pleased to see that he had brought Carol Fuhrman—and Joan Dryfoos also noticed that Carol was wearing a gold friendship ring. She commented on it, but received only a blushing evasive reply—very different from the reaction of Punch Sulzberger’s estranged wife, Barbara, when
she
would learn of the ring. It was not that Barbara Sulzberger objected to her husband’s dating other women, for she had dated other men, and they were about to be divorced: but she
did
object to receiving the bill for the ring, sent to her by a prominent Fifth Avenue jeweler and listed as one “gold wedding band.” It turned out to be a mistake on the store’s part, however, not a sample of Sulzberger humor. And after the initial reaction and embarrassment had subsided, there were no further complications—the divorce proceedings continued, and in December of 1956 Carol Fox Fuhrman and Punch Sulzberger were married.

The new Mrs. Sulzberger objected to the nickname “Punch,” preferring to call him Arthur. “Punch” was a reminder of a troubled boyhood that was part of the past, and she hoped that he would be seen for what he was to her—a sensitive and quick-thinking
young man with commendable qualities that had long been obscured by his more obvious easy manner and his old image. There were some
Times
executives, like Catledge and a few others, who also felt that Sulzberger was capable of major responsibilities on
The Times
if given a chance, but until 1963 that chance did not come. Orvil Dryfoos was running the paper and was assisted by Amory Bradford; neither was very impressed with Sulzberger and both thought that it might be better if he learned the newspaper business elsewhere. As a minor executive, he had little to say or do on the fourteenth floor. He sometimes attended the four o’clock news conference and was often seen around the third floor, a clean-cut, dark-eyed young man puffing a pipe, smiling, then looking up at the walls in the newsroom inspecting the paint, or scrutinizing the air-conditioning ducts, appearing to be endlessly fascinated by the mechanical system and machinery around the building. He knew a great deal about automation and the new equipment being used in
The Times
’ West Coast and European editions. His opinions on news coverage, however, were rarely solicited or expressed, and he was often ignored by some top
Times
men. Even James Reston, when he would come flying in to New York from Washington, would, after a quick handshake and hello, breeze past Sulzberger into the office of the publisher, Orvil Dryfoos. Dryfoos was a vigorous man not yet fifty, the man who was expected to direct the paper through the next two decades. Sulzberger was in his thirties, and he seemed younger. When Amory Bradford would preside at meetings on the fourteenth floor, Sulzberger would sit back quietly and listen like a schoolboy. Sulzberger was awed by Bradford, confused and dazzled as the vice-president stood before the other executives and quickly ticked off facts and figures that everybody in the room seemed to understand except himself. While they nodded knowingly at Bradford, Sulzberger tried to conceal his ignorance with his impassiveness, but inwardly he was embarrassed. Only after he had become the publisher did he learn that the other executives had been no less confused than he.

The death of Dryfoos and the elevation of Sulzberger brought sudden changes to
The Times
, and one of the first announcements
was the resignation of Amory Bradford. Bradford submitted his public resignation with the amenities that are traditional in such documents, and it was replied to in a statement from the office of the chairman of the board, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, that read: “Amory Bradford has been a valuable source of strength and leadership in our organization. We are sorry he has decided to resign. He will be greatly missed.”

Later that year, Bradford was appointed assistant general business manager of the Scripps-Howard newspapers. He would remain at Scripps-Howard for a year and a half, but he would not be happy there, and in 1965 he would resign and move to Aspen, Colorado. While cleaning out his desk at Scripps-Howard, he would discover a copy of A. H. Raskin’s strike story that had appeared in
The Times
. Bradford had never read the story completely through. Now, seated at the open-drawered desk that he was vacating, he would pick up the two-year-old newspaper article and begin to read, and be reminded of the fretful months of the negotiations between 1962 and 1963, the frustration and anger, the additional heat provided by the television coverage, the whole cast of characters from the White House on down. The strike had altered the careers and destiny of so many people. The printers’ leader, Bertram Powers, had gotten the recognition that he sought. Some New York newspapers would become so financially weak that they would never recover. The strike had possibly hastened the death of Dryfoos, and it certainly had not helped Bradford’s own newspaper career, and he conceded that it might have also influenced the course of his marriage, which ended in divorce. Both he and his former wife would remarry. He would marry a California widow who was an artist and conservationist, and he would work as a consultant to the Department of Commerce, heading an experimental program in Oakland aimed at solving problems of minority unemployment.

After Bradford had finished reading A. H. Raskin’s
Times
article on the strike of 1962–63, he was rather sorry that he had been too pressured during the negotiations to cooperate more with Raskin. Even so, though the article was critical of him, Bradford thought that Raskin’s reporting was very well done.

Bradford’s place on
The Times
was taken by Harding F. Bancroft, an extremely proper, soft-spoken, and handsome man of fifty-three—a descendant of Richard Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury (1604–1610). Bancroft had attended the Harvard Law School after graduation from Williams College, practicing law in New York for five years. After service as a naval officer during World War II, Bancroft worked in the State Department in 1945, meeting and becoming friends with Amory Bradford. In 1951, Bancroft had been appointed by President Truman as the United States deputy representative to the United Nations Collective Measures Committee, and in 1953 he began a three-year assignment in Geneva as legal adviser of the International Labor Office. Bancroft became associate counsel and assistant secretary of
The Times
in 1956, and secretary in 1957; and with Bradford’s departure, Harding Bancroft was named
The Times
’ vice-president, moving into Bradford’s office on the fourteenth floor.