I'm grateful for the lovely note.
I never saw this staff -- including Paul -- come up so good for a big one.
Now on the June 6 page --
+ We talked about wood around 45 minutes after the death bulletin when you called me here. I said it would be idle to try to settle on it at that hour because we did not yet know whether The News and Times had held -- or how heavily they would be able to plaster the newsstands with wood that said RFK IS DEAD or KENNEDY IS DEAD. They did hold, it turned out, and they laid the paper around pretty good. So the afternoon paper in the town needed not second day wood, necessarily, but something vivid that would touch the reader where the Kennedy story had to be -- in his heart. NOW RFK, with the double JFK and RFK art display, seemed to me to do it. I regret very deeply that you think it cost us some sales. I guess I have put out about 20,000 different front pages in the last nineteen years: this one produced more hosannas than any other that I can remember. Yours is the lonley -- but surely forceful -- dissent; it's the one I hoped I wouldn't hear.
+ On the color, the EXTRA slug seemed to me to be automatic on both the first and second days. It never occurred to me that the question needed to be raised. Next time, I will surely call you. |