The Times Of His Life: ARTHUR SULZERGER JR.

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In 1980 Sulzberger moved to New York City and had to prove once again he was more than the boss's son. Columnist Anna Quindlen says, "From the moment he walked in the door, there were people desperately trying to dislike him. It proved to be impossible." He did everything but deliver the paper -- and as night production manager, he came close to doing that. He covered city hall, then became an assignment editor, "the single most exhausting job I ever had." This was when he learned the importance of walking around, often without his shoes on, practicing his theory that participatory democracy is the best way to manage people. Says a Metro reporter: "I wasn't afraid of him, and I'm afraid of just about every other editor here."

Once Sulzberger became deputy publisher in 1988, he felt for the first time "the job was mine to lose." His confidence increased, and the Lettermanesque wise-guy side of his personality receded. Reporters noticed a deeper affection growing between him and his father, "Punch" Sulzberger. One editor observed, "Arthur took on some of Punch's winning characteristics -- his self-deprecating humor, his listening rather than talking." (He did not find it humorous, however, when people tried to stick him with the obvious diminutive "Pinch.") When, just after being named publisher, he said that it gave him comfort to know that his father would remain as company chairman and be there to counsel him, colleagues believed him.

But if Sulzberger is 40 going on 60 one minute, he can be irrepressibly coltish the next, leaping out of his chair in his 11th-floor office with its view of Broadway on the slightest pretext: checking with his secretary on whether he calls his father "Dad," "Punch" or "the chairman" (in public, it's "the chairman"); grabbing a book by a management guru he admires; pointing out the stand-up desk where he reads the paper at 7 each morning. At a birthday party at the 300-acre family estate in Connecticut (where the family dogs have their own memorial park), it poured all day but, like a camp counselor with a shrill whistle, he insisted that everyone jump into the pool and play volleyball.

Some who lived through the "reign of terror" under executive editor A.M. Rosenthal say that Sulzberger's single greatest achievement has been instituting a philosophy that values people almost as much as their copy. "Fear is not the best way to get things done," he says. This works better on the business side, he admits, where he has been able to wipe out layers of middle management, and less well on the editorial side, where executive editor Max Frankel joked on the day Sulzberger was named publisher that the newsroom would remain a monarchy.

Right after taking over as publisher, Sulzberger invited Frankel's subjects to two lunches of cold cuts and pasta (pleasantly tacky, a reporter said) at a nearby Marriott. When Sulzberger described his theories of management, a reporter piped up that terror was still the prevalent emotion on 43rd Street. Sulzberger went on in his usual cheerful way, while "Max and Joe ((Lelyveld, the managing editor)) looked like they wanted to die," the reporter recalls.