Former New York Times executive editor A.M. 'Abe' Rosenthal dies at 84

ap on San Diego Union - Tribune ^ | 5/10/06 | Richard Pyle - ap

[NormsRevenge]

NEW YORK – A.M. Rosenthal, a demanding editor who lifted The New York Times from economic doldrums in the 1970s and molded it into a journalistic juggernaut known for distinguished reporting of national and world affairs, died Wednesday at age 84.

He died of complications from a stroke he suffered two weeks ago, the Times said.

Rosenthal, known as Abe, spent virtually all of his working life at the Times, beginning as a lowly campus stringer in 1943. He rose to police reporter, foreign correspondent, managing editor and finally to the exalted office of executive editor, a post he held for nine years beginning in 1977. “Abe was a giant among journalists,” retired Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger said in a statement. “He was a great editor with extraordinary loyalty to his troops.”

On Rosenthal's watch, the Times published the “Pentagon Papers,” a history of America's secret involvement in Vietnam, which won the paper one of its many Pulitzer Prizes in 1972. But the paper started slowly on Watergate and never caught up with the rival Washington Post on the seminal story that brought down a president.

In 1986, facing mandatory retirement, Rosenthal stepped down as editor to assume a new role as a twice-weekly columnist. Thirteen years later, he was abruptly dismissed, with no explanation, he said, other than a comment by Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. that “it's time.”

Rosenthal made clear that the parting was not his idea, telling one questioner that to say he had retired “would imply volition.” When asked by a reporter for the Washington Post whether he was fired, he replied, “Sweetheart, you can use any word you want.”

[blitzgig]

Thanks for the historical background. That was helpful.

[LdSentinal]

RIP.

[noncommie]

The Pentagon Papers represented an enormous information dump. The whole thing was printed as a fat extra section of the New York Times, which few people probably actually read, and as a book, which few people probably read either. They bought it and put it on their coffee tables.

Neither the book nor the newspaper excerpt was 7000 pages long. The part that the leftist media (or, as it was known back then the "only media") printed was a "dump," yes, but even that was very, very heavily culled. The guy who leaked the info did so in a very selective manner.

And, remember, when it comes to propaganda, the TONE is at least as important as the factual distortion. These papers were never mentioned in public without heavy conspiratorial overtones. The message (which in the 70's was practically unnapposed) was that the US government was tEh eViL for keeping secrets in the first place, regardless of what those secrets might have been.

[mware]

RIP Abe.

You are sure to go to Heaven, 'cause you spent your time in hell.

[Cicero]

Oh, yes, I agree. Hardly anyone read even the published materials. All they needed to know was that the media told them it proved that Nixon was corrupt.

Although Kennedy and Johnson were chiefly responsible for the Vietnam War and its mishandling, Nixon got all of the blame for it at that time.

But they did include that one very interesting piece of information--that Kennedy ordered the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem. I don't recall anything in the published papers that actually showed Nixon in a bad light, although I'm sure they did the best they could.