(Th:is is my first commentary on my blog which is not related to ny book: “My Memoirs:Fifty Years of Journalism, from Print to the Internet.”) Back when I was foreign editor of The New York Times,(1969-1975), we had on the copy desk, a tremendous asset, a skilled geographer named Theodore (Ted) Shabad, who was a specialist on the Soviet Union. During my time as chief Moscow correspondent for The Times (1969-71), Ted served as my deputy in the bureau…..
In the spring of 1993, I paid a visit to my older son, James, then a sophomore at Harvard College. He had always been a “techie” and was then majoring in computer science. James invited me to visit his computer science building which was located in the distant reaches of the Harvard campus, We went to his work station, and he called up the web site of the Library of Congress, which had on the computer screen a picture showing…..
Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, I began to brood a bit, thinking wrongly that there would be little excitement left in foreign reporting. In fact, at the end of 1992, I sent a memo to the foreign staff: “What has spurred this memo, of course, has been the breakup of the Soviet Union and Gorbachev’s resignation last Christmas which followed so closely upon the collapse of the Communist system in Eastern Europe two years earlier. Not only have…..
Even before the break-up of the Soviet bloc in late 1989, events in China were producing a major story, As many as 100,000 students had made their way to Beijing and had taken over control of Tiananmen square, the center of the capital. The student excitement was fanned by the arrival of Gorbachev in May, seeking to patch up Soviet-Chinese relations which had been strained to the breaking point for some thirty years, ever since Khrushchev’s anti-Stalin policies. The students…..
At the beginning of August in 1989, I officially became foreign editor. I asked Mike Kaufman, who had recently been the Times’ correspondent in Warsaw, to be my deputy. I was surprised at how little news there seemed to be at that particular time, and I sent a memo out to all correspondents, telling them that we were desperate to receive copy since I could guarantee that their stories would get in the paper right away and would not be…..
In June 1978, the Washingtonian magazine ran an article on the “Journalism Establishment” that included a listing of “the top fifty” journalists in the capital. I was included along with a picture, and the article said “The New York Times is still the ‘mark’ for other newspapers in foreign affairs coverage. Gwertzman is regarded by his colleagues as the most influential diplomatic correspondent in town.” I was of course pleased by the recognition, but life goes on and I continued…..
The switch from Al Haig to George Shultz as secretary of state occurred in the summer of 1982. Reagan had asked Haig to stay in charge while the latest fighting in Lebanon between Israel and PLO forces, aided by Syria, continued. Shultz took over at the end of July after relaxed confirmation hearings. Reagan, who up until then had seemed to pay limited attention to the Middle East, read over a local California radio station on September 1, 1982, his…..
In the immediate aftermath of Ronald Reagan’s victory in the 1980 presidential elections, there was widespread pleasure that the hostages had all been freed from the 444-day captivity in the American embassy in Teheran. And Reagan’s choice of Alexander M. Haig as his Secretary of State did not cause much particular concern or interest. What struck me in the early days of the Reagan administration was the blistering criticism launched by Reagan at the Soviet Union in his early days…..
During the Camp David talks in September 1978, in which President Carter mediated between Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, eventually achieving a peace treaty between the two sides, the only other news coming across the news wires was about “riots’ in Iran in several cities against the Shah’s regime. Although we were aware of anti-Shah sentiment in Iran, I don’t think we in the press corps took it too seriously. But Vance, in his memoirs,…..
Looking back on 1977, I can remember the expectation of change that was in the air. Jimmy Carter, the former governor of Georgia, with virtually no experience on the world stage, had been elected president. But almost as if to prove journalists wrong, Carter set out early to give emphasis to foreign affairs, and in particular to human rights abroad. In advance of taking office, he named Cyrus R. Vance, a prominent New York lawyer, who had served as deputy…..