The Story

by Judith Miller

  Abe Rosenthal and Arthur Gelb encouraged my inquiry. Earlier, Arthur had overruled a ban on “first-person” pieces in the paper to permit me to write for the Sunday magazine about being a woman reporter in the Middle East. (I led with “George” and our two kids.)5 I learned later that Abe and Arthur supported the magazine editor’s desire to put on the cover my essay about the eruptions of memory of the Holocaust which events like the Barbie trial were prompting in France, Germany, and Austria. They even let Ed Klein, then the editor, commission an original drawing for the cover by Larry Rivers, an artist much in vogue.6 The article was the origin of my first book—One, by One, by One: Facing the Holocaust—and led to a contract for another with Alice Mayhew, the legendary editor at Simon & Schuster, who has wound up publishing virtually all my books and has become a lifelong friend.

  My research into Holocaust revisionism prompted me to think about my Jewish roots, as well as my views on human rights and the obligation to oppose evil. After the disaster in Vietnam, “realists” of my generation argued that America should intervene militarily only when immediate national security interests are at stake. We can’t police the world. Until my assignments in Cairo and Paris, I largely shared that view.

  For me, the Holocaust had been an abstraction. But immersing myself in the world of survivors and those who studied them was powerful and painful. I discovered that most members of my father’s extended family who hadn’t immigrated to America from the Pale had perished in Nazi death camps. How had so many Germans, with their advanced culture and civilization, participated in or condoned the first industrialized mass slaughter? Why had there been so little resistance to the Nazis and the Holocaust throughout Europe?

  After I wrote an article which my editors entitled “Erasing the Past: Europe’s Amnesia About the Holocaust,” I became powerfully drawn to the question of what we owe vulnerable people in physical or political peril, and what we should do about places where the rule of law and the protection of civilians are collapsing. I found myself favoring the humanitarian intervention I had resisted after Vietnam. Europeans and Americans were ignoring challenges to our common humanity: Saddam’s use of poison gas against the Kurds in the 1988 Anfal campaign; the slaughter in Srebrenica and other Balkan cities and villages, which killed some three hundred thousand people between 1991 and 1995 in the former Yugoslavia—at Europe’s doorstep—and the 1994 mass murder of some eight hundred thousand Tutsis by Hutus in Rwanda. President Clinton would later call his failure to intervene there the worst mistake of his presidency.

  In One, by One, by One, published in 1990 on the eve of the first Iraq war, I wrote that before the Holocaust was understood as a national and international catastrophe, it was an actual tragedy for millions of innocent individuals. “Abstraction is memory’s most ardent enemy.” “The Holocaust was not six million. It was one, plus one, plus one. . . . Only in understanding that civilized people must defend the one, by one, by one . . . can the Holocaust, the incomprehensible, be given meaning.”

  — CHAPTER 8 —

  “BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR”: WASHINGTON NEWS EDITOR

  I had been in Paris only a year when Max Frankel, who succeeded Abe Rosenthal as executive editor, asked me to be the Washington bureau’s news editor and deputy bureau chief. I was thrilled but puzzled. I barely knew Craig Whitney, the designated bureau chief, and had no idea why Max had chosen me, since I had never been an editor and was underqualified for so senior a job. I had spoken to Max at length only once when he was chief of the editorial page. I had gone to see him about the article that had led to my Holocaust book. His family had been driven out of Germany and been separated for seven years: his father in Russia, he and his mother in America. She had barely managed to support the family as a seamstress in Brooklyn.

  Max told me that my youth and enthusiasm would help energize a staid bureau. Washington reporters would relate to me, he added, since I had recently been one of them. And I was a woman. Max, acting in sync with Arthur Sulzberger’s stated commitment to gender and ethnic diversity, had already promoted several women and minorities to senior jobs.I

  But I was an anomaly; Max and Abe had been fierce rivals—the “not Abe,” Max called himself in his memoir.1 I was the only woman he promoted whom Abe had favored.

  I was puzzled, but didn’t hesitate. While I loved being a foreign correspondent, how could I resist? No woman had ever been Washington news editor and deputy bureau chief. And I was not yet forty.

  But was I cut out to be an editor? Mary McGrory, a liberal columnist at the Washington Post, whom I deeply admired, warned that I was making a terrible mistake. “You’re a writer,” she told me. “Why on earth do you want to herd cats and fix other people’s work?” I feared she was right. I stopped in London to discuss the job with Howell Raines, a strong-willed southerner and gifted writer who had shaken up the Washington bureau during his controversial tour as its deputy. I knew that Howell had wanted the top Washington job.

  Managing reporters would be tough, especially for me, Howell predicted over bourbon that we drank from teacups at the paper’s London bureau. The Washington bureau was a mixture of what he called “savants and nerds,” a “cross between the Faculty Club and the Junior Electrons Science Club.” Under Max, the bureau had been scooped repeatedly on Watergate by the Washington Post and still suffered from what Howell called an “entrenched culture of indolence” that afflicted the entire paper.2 Since senior reporters usually held the best beats, the bureau’s average age was older than that of the New York staff. Many reporters didn’t work hard enough and were fiercely territorial, willing to destroy a junior reporter assigned to help cover a story they were missing. Editors were turf conscious and reluctant to edit stories outside their expertise. The bureau did all too little investigative reporting, he complained, and broke few stories.

  As news editor, I assumed that I would help launch investigations into competitive stories and decide which reporters were best suited to pursue them. The bureau didn’t work that way, Howell warned me, chuckling at my naiveté. Editors in New York, not Washington, often made such crucial decisions. My job as news editor would be to ensure that the reportorial trains ran smoothly, that reporters didn’t fight too often or bitterly over turf, and to set a positive, encouraging tone with reporters. The job, he said, was part traffic cop, fact-checker, and cheerleader, and, because I was a woman, full-time den mother. Howell was too diplomatic to say what we both knew: none of those roles suited me, particularly den mother.

  I soon discovered that the bureau had remarkable strengths. I already knew that Jeff Gerth, among my oldest friends at the paper, was an amazing investigator. But there were other gems. Gerald Boyd, an African American senior correspondent, rare at the paper, excelled as a White House correspondent, covering Reagan with Bernard Weinraub, another savvy Times veteran. They rarely quarreled over top billing. B. Drummond Ayres Jr., a genteel, wickedly funny southerner, was a gifted reporter and editor. David Rosenbaum, who would be murdered years later in a savage robbery near his home, was Ayres’s northern bookend. David Binder, who was underappreciated by some New York editors, had vast knowledge of foreign issues, especially German and Balkan. Linda Greenhouse, whom the paper sent to Yale Law School for a fellowship, produced brilliant coverage of the Supreme Court, among the least transparent institutions in Washington. Another quiet star was Robert Pear. No one worked harder or broke more stories on his health and welfare beat. E. J. Dionne, who covered politics after his stint in Rome, was an original. I learned much from him about politics, which I had covered only briefly as a reporter and did not particularly enjoy.

  Over time, however, Craig Whitney, the bureau chief, R. W. “Johnny” Apple Jr., then the chief Washington correspondent with whom I shared the title of deputy bureau chief, and I discovered that the bureau, and even some of its most talented correspondents, had gaps. An example was Maureen Dowd and the Iran-contra scandal, an intensely competitive story. In February 1987, Robert “
Bud” McFarlane, Reagan’s national security adviser, attempted suicide. Bud had secretly traveled to Tehran to sell arms to Iran, then under an arms embargo, in hopes of securing the release of American hostages being held in Lebanon. I knew Bud fairly well and liked him. I was sorry for him and his family when his attempt made headlines. I wrote him a heartfelt note.

  When Bud decided to talk about his Valium overdose and his role in the affair a month later, he called me. Would I see him and write a story? With regret, I told him that Times editors did not report and write stories. But I promised to send a correspondent whom he could trust to tell his story accurately and with empathy. For me, the choice was obvious: Maureen Dowd.

  Maureen hesitated when I offered her the exclusive. The first interview with McFarlane would be a major scoop! What was wrong?

  “I don’t know anything about Iran-contra,” she said.

  Knowing that Maureen often feigned ignorance to elicit help from knowledgeable sources, I told her that this was no time for false modesty. Iran-contra was the biggest story in town. Maureen covered politics and surely knew that several senior officials in the White House, including McFarlane and Lt. Col. Oliver North, had sold $30 million worth of weapons to Iran in violation of the embargo. Obviously she knew that the contras, who opposed the Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua, had received a portion of that money, a violation of a congressional ban, which was why some senators were demanding that Reagan be impeached. Surely she knew enough about the scandal to interview Bud? No, she replied. She had barely followed the story that had rocked the Reagan presidency and consumed Washington for over a year.

  Craig and I had a choice: we could send a reporter familiar with the scandal or try to tell her enough about it to conduct the interview. I stuck with my gut.

  As we waited for the limo that would take her to McFarlane’s house for dinner, I told her the who, how, when, what, where of the plot that had scarred the president and destroyed the careers of several high-ranking officials. I suggested several questions for Bud. Whatever he said was bound to make headlines.

  Maureen wrote a riveting account of Bud’s ordeal. McFarlane, she wrote, had tried to kill himself not because he was depressed about having to testify before congressional committees and a special presidential panel, or because he was embarrassed by the exposure of his role in the Iran affair. He had done so because the scandal made him feel that he had “failed the country.”

  Maureen’s portrait of a dedicated, well-meaning man who had broken the law was brilliant. It was among my proudest moments as an editor in Washington. Her story, which I helped edit, told us more about what ambition and pressure can do to people than all the stories about Iran-contra that we had run on the front page. It also solidified her status as a star.

  That high point was overshadowed by many failures and disappointments. As Howell had warned me, the bureau had plenty of “dead wood”—what Max Frankel called “unproductive reporters.” We were still being beaten on high-profile stories, and Max made clear to Craig, Johnny, and me that we had to force out nonperformers. The Times newsroom in New York then had over a thousand reporters and editors, many of whom would “kill” to work in the Washington bureau, he told us.

  Craig, retiring by nature, often asked me to deliver bad news. I was uncomfortable with this task and soon dreaded going to work. I missed reporting and writing. I also found myself criticizing stories that I thought were thinly sourced, factually flawed, or politically slanted. I felt that a left-of-center bias—the paper’s natural drift, given the political views of the overwhelming majority of its staff—would be harmful for the paper, particularly in President Reagan’s Washington. Republicans tended to view the mainstream press, especially the Times, as the enemy. Regarded by many as a public trust, the paper could ill afford to ignore that perception.

  I was sensitive to any political agenda in a reporter’s copy. Confronting reporters’ stories understandably generated resentment. With an average of twenty stories filed each day, I rarely had time to be deft or subtle. We often had only minutes to edit and fix copy filed on deadline and send it to other copy editors in New York on separate news desks, and then to a third rung of senior “backfield” editors who worked near Max’s office.

  I realized gradually that I was wrong for the job I was honored to have been offered and confessed my misery to Times columnist Bill Safire, whom I trusted as a friend and adviser. I had often worked with Bill when I was a reporter in the bureau. Though a conservative, Bill broke news about scandals affecting liberals and conservatives alike. He was a generous colleague, sharing tips of potentially good news stories with me and other reporters, a rarity among columnists. He had encouraged me to accept the editing job in Washington. So over lunch one day, I told him that the idea of helping run the bureau had been far more exhilarating than actually running it. Surely I was not the only reporter to have discovered that I disliked editing and managing reporters. Bill sympathized, to a point. But he reminded me that failing as an editor at the Times meant the end of a potentially rewarding career. The Times was an editor’s paper. Did I want to betray my generation of reporters, especially younger women, by giving up so easily? Keep trying, he told me.

  There was another issue: sexism. Both Howell and Bill Kovach, Howell’s predecessor as bureau chief, had impressive tempers. And while both were inspiring editors, reporters had told me about instances in which they had scolded reporters in front of their colleagues. Several recalled that Howell had once chewed out Stephen Engelberg, one of the paper’s best reporters and later its investigations editor, for having missed a hearing that had ended before his arrival. “Either you get me the story, or I will find someone who will!” he had shouted in the newsroom.3 Male editors were quickly forgiven for such tantrums. But my own frustrated outbursts quickly became an issue. Reporters who would cower before Craig Whitney, our soft-spoken bureau chief, and even avuncular Johnny Apple, showed me little deference. If I made an assignment they disliked, or sent back their copy with questions, reporters would often complain. Sensitive to the gender bias against me, Craig usually supported my call, even when he doubted it. Not so Mr. Apple, a huge talent but a true diva, who barely hid his displeasure at having to share the deputy bureau chief’s title.

  * * *

  The bureau needed a broad shake-up, Max Frankel decided, and Craig, Johnny, and I agreed. At his request, we had drawn up a list of recommended shifts. A few reporters were to be reassigned to New York; others would trade beats within the bureau; a couple of outsiders would be brought in from New York or other domestic or foreign bureaus to help us in areas where our reporters were lagging. Max and Joe Lelyveld, his deputy, pushed us to add more names to the list. After approving the staff changes, they came down to Washington to congratulate us for having taken difficult but essential steps to enhance the bureau’s competitiveness. Despite their praise, I was unhappy. I sensed that the staff changes would be bitterly resented and resisted. And they were.

  By the summer of 1987, I was more miserable. Not only did I dislike managing reporters, I surprisingly found little joy in being responsible for decisions about the priority of news stories. Despite Bill Safire’s hopes for me, I realized that I didn’t want to run the Times. I just wanted to write for it again.

  After finishing the first of several drafts of my Holocaust book, I needed a break. Craig urged me to take a vacation that I had long planned in the South of France. En route home to Washington, I was scheduled to stop in London for a black-tie dinner to mark the opening of an exhibit at the Tate art gallery that Arthur “Punch” Sulzberger, the publisher, was also attending.

  In Paris the night before my flight to London, Jeff Gerth called from Washington. What did I think about the news? he asked me. Was I all right? I had no idea what he was talking about. Craig was being transferred to London, he told me; Howell Raines was returning to DC to become bureau chief, the job he had always wanted. Johnny would retain the deputy bureau chief’s title but
return more or less full-time to reporting. Craig was being exiled in a palace putsch. Howell had won. There was no mention of my fate.

  I barely remember the rest of the trip to London. I was sad for Craig, who had worked so hard to improve the bureau. I also fretted about my own prospects. Although I yearned to return to writing, I did not want to be demoted. The shifts in the bureau were an unexpected blow. Craig later assured me that he had known nothing about them when he had urged me to take my vacation.

  As I entered the museum, still in semishock, I saw Punch and his wife, Carol. Both greeted me warmly. It was a lovely party, wasn’t it? The exhibit was superb. London’s weather was uncharacteristically clear and warm. Why did I look so upset? Punch asked, wrapping his arm around me protectively. The transfers were for the best, he told me. And they didn’t affect me. “You still have your job in Washington.”

  * * *

  I. Soma Golden became national editor, the first Times woman to head a major department; Carolyn Lee was assistant managing editor, another female first; and Angela Dodson was named Style editor, making her the first African American woman to head a major Times department. Sulzberger became assistant publisher at roughly the same time.

  — CHAPTER 9 —