Press: Rarely Safe, Very Rarely Sorry

Safire irks liberals, surprises conservatives and pleases himself

Consternation and even outrage from his new colleagues greeted William Safire when he joined the New York Times as a columnist in 1973. Safire was triply suspect: he had come directly from White House speechwriting for Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, for whom he had coined press-baiting phrases like "nattering nabobs of negativism"; he was an aggressively conservative Republican at the generally liberal Times; and he was a writer scarcely versed in journalism who for nearly two decades had been pursuing careers in television production and public relations. Recalls Executive Editor A.M. Rosenthal: "Almost everybody on the paper and all the journalists outside were sneering."

Now, as Safire, 53, nears his tenth anniversary at the Times in April, his twice-weekly "Essay" on politics, distributed to more than 500 daily newspapers, is considered virtually required reading in the inner circles of Government and journalism. Says one admiring rival, Robert Novak, co-author with Rowland Evans of one of the nation's best-known columns: "Safire is the most readable columnist in Washington and the one I can least afford to miss."

In the tightrope-walking act of writing a column, Safire has the Washington gifts of balance and timing. He can manage to be topical without sounding like every other pundit; he can venture into quirky subjects without seeming irrelevant. He knows how to provoke readers enough that they keep reading, but not so much that they angrily turn the page. He is a master of both puckish wit and ear-splitting indignation, yet on matters of moral consequence he can write with majestically measured restraint. He boasts of having taken the scalps of Cabinet members, congressional leaders and diplomats, yet he is quicker to offer a correction, or to let a target answer back, than almost any other eminent columnist.

Safire is widely acclaimed as a stylist. Indeed, his weekly columns on language in the Sunday Times Magazine and more than 100 other newspapers evoke more mail, much of it combative, than his weekday political "Essay." Says Safire: "When people notice I have made an error, their eyes light up." Enamored of puns, literary allusions, grand metaphors and other wordplay, Safire at his giddiest can let his love of sound undermine his efforts to make sense. An example: "Thus one who lobbies expertly for the rights of female derelicts might be called a shopping-bag-lady knifethrower." He is usually most effective when simplest, writing blunt, mock-macho prose. Recounting in January the confession of a former Communist "mole," American Aristocrat Michael Straight, Safire cracked, "How delicious it must have been for a Red under the bed to deride Joe McCarthy for looking for Reds under the bed." In a column labeled "The Midterm Crisis," Safire counseled: "Mr. Reagan must dispense with his I-am-not-a-shnook defensiveness."