An Extra Nickel's Worth

Monday, Jun. 21, 1971
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The New York Times has no reputation for sudden innovation, so it came as something of a surprise when, last September, the paper introduced an "Op-Ed" page, journalist's jargon for an opinion page opposite the editorials. The addition was a notable change for the Times. Since then, it has not only become one of the most closely watched and sought-after forums for comment in U.S. daily journalism but probably the best Op-Ed page anywhere.

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The Op-Ed format was first popularized by Editor Herbert Bayard Swope on the Pulitzers' old New York World in the early 1920s. It is now used by many U.S. papers, which usually fill it with syndicated columns. At the Times, that particular page had for decades been the repository of the obituaries. To begin the new feature, the death notices were banished to the second section, making room for a dizzying diversity of views and opinions that perhaps only the Times, with its great prestige, could bring together. Regular Columnists James Reston, C.L. Sulzberger, Russell Baker and Tom Wicker share the space with outside contributors, who differ widely in political philosophy (from New Leftist Herbert Marcuse to Right Wing Libertarian Murray Rothbard) and in personality (from Burma's ascetic rebel U Nu to baseball's syntax-smashing Casey Stengel).

Stick to Necking. Controversy has been a prime objective of Op-Ed since its inception, and the page now draws nearly as many letters to the Times as the paper's editorials. Although some of the political contributions have been a bit pedantic, other offerings have produced delight, drama and deliberate outrage. The most inflammatory essay to date was an open letter to his college-bound son by a Southern physician, Dr. Paul Williamson. Stick to studying and necking and avoid revolution, wrote the father, or "expect to get shot. Mother and I will grieve, but we will gladly buy a dinner for the National Guardsman who shot you." More than 300 letters poured in to the Times, most of them attacking the doctor. Not far behind in reader response was a polemic by Roman Catholic Militant L. Brent Bozell, who provoked an outburst by arguing that birth control and abortion reduced sex to mutual masturbation.

By a judicious juxtaposition of contributions, Op-Ed has been able to create a contrapuntal dialogue of ideas. West German Chancellor Willy Brandt defended his treaty with the Soviet Union as a necessary forerunner of general East-West détente; Arthur Goldberg subsequently scolded Brandt's U.S. critics, notably George Ball, for endangering the Ostpolitik effort, and got scolded in turn by Ball for trying to foreclose discussion of Brandt's policies. The Times became the first major paper to pinpoint an ideological split within the ranks of American conservatives when Op-Ed allowed Economist Rothbard, a onetime contributor to William Buckley's National Review, to criticize Buckley for abandoning the individualistic concept that the best government is the least government. In a subsequent solicited rebuttal, Buckley retorted that Rothbard failed to make a moral distinction between Nikita Khrushchev and Dwight Eisenhower.