The Best of Times

Because Arthur Ochs (Punch) Sulzberger was so affable and self-effacing, his extraordinary toughness—even ruthlessness—came as a shock to those ill-advised enough to put him in a corner. When he first became publisher of the New York Times, in 1963, his first act was to fire the company’s top non-family executive, who for years had treated Punch with undisguised contempt as the unqualified son without the guts or resolve to lead a newspaper dynasty. He was incorrect.

Not long after, the new and untried publisher was summoned to the White House by President John F. Kennedy, who demanded that David Halberstam be recalled from Vietnam because his reporting challenged the version of events that the Pentagon was proffering. Punch was shaken. Being upbraided by the President was new to him. But his response was to return to the Times&#8217 bureau and cancel Halberstam’s long-planned vacation. He didn’t want the White House to think it had been successful in its power play.

A few years later, it was Punch who made the decision to continue publishing the Pentagon Papers in defiance of a demand from the Nixon White House that publication cease. It had been difficult enough for Punch to decide to publish the Papers in the first place. They were classified documents and the country was at war. But they told a story of systematic deceit by the government about how the United States had become embroiled in Vietnam, and Punch was persuaded that the documents were not secrets but were only embarrassing. He believed that the truth they told was crucial for Americans to know. The Timess own lawyers refused to represent the paper when they learned he planned to publish, and many thought that Punch would go to jail. But he went ahead. And when Attorney General John Mitchell then demanded publication stop, he defied the White House once again. It was arguably the most important moment in American journalism history, and certainly the proudest moment for the New York Times—and for the Ochs/Sulzberger family.

The New York Times was in receivership when Punch’s grandfather, Adolph Ochs, acquired it in 1896. He made the proud boast to report “all the news that’s fit to print” and to do it “without fear or favor.” Punch’s mother, Iphigene, was Adolph’s only child, and her descendants through her marriage to Arthur Hays Sulzberger have considered themselves not just the owners, but the stewards, of the New York Times. Their commitment to this stewardship has kept them bound to each other and to the paper through many difficult times, and none more difficult than the past several years. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., Punch’s son, has been at the helm, but at a time when the company’s stock tanked and dividends disappeared, there has been a solidarity that has been confounding to many who would have loved to see the company torn apart by family strife.

Punch was the embodiment of that commitment to the family’s stewardship of this news institution. It is their pride and their honor, and it was in that spirit that Punch made the decision he did about the Pentagon Papers. His belief was that if the Times did not report what it knew, it would lose its moral authority and the covenant with its readers would have been shattered. This is what Abe Rosenthal, the paper’s top editor, told Punch and what he believed to be true. And the family supported him down the line, a Sulzberger tradition in very hard times.

Punch would be extremely uncomfortable with the plaudits and tributes that will come with his passing. He would want to point to something bigger—the staff of the New York Times and its readers and supporters. But he would also have wanted his stewardship to have been viewed as a family affair. It was always a family affair. And it is the extreme good fortune of us all that it still is.

Photograph: AP Photo/Anthony Camerano, File.