Beware of Limbo Dancers: A Correspondent’s Adventures with the New York Times

Image Plates

Roy and his parents, Roy and Ella Meredith Reed, on their son’s graduation from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in . Family photo. Norma and Roy Reed and their children, Cindy and John, in the mid-s. Family photo. In the newsroom of the Arkansas Gazette. Unknown photographer. On my first day in Selma, I blundered into the picture when Martin Luther King was released from jail. The other man is public safety director Wilson Baker. UPI photo. Caught asleep in the Oval Office. A smart-aleck friend’s note said,“What I like is wide awake Washington newsmen.” UPI photo. The Times rented several rooms at the Conrad Hilton Hotel during the  Democratic convention in Chicago. While Mayor Richard Daley’s cops were teargassing protesters and reporters across the street, Warren Weaver, John Herbers, Diane Henry, and I sat safely inside. New York Times photo. I traveled with Hubert Humphrey when he was vice president and later when he ran for president. White House photo. After her husband died, Mrs. Lady Bird Johnson invited several reporters who had covered the White House and the First Lady’s activities to visit her in Texas. I was the only man in the group. White House photo. Turner Catledge, the Times executive editor, hired me, and when he retired to New Orleans, we shared an office. New York Times photo. Times Talk, the paper’s house organ, ran this photo of me and our daughter Cindy. She had won a Times scholarship. Photo by Chris Harris. President Clinton visited Springdale, Arkansas, before his hair turned white. The other couple were Gene and Joye Kelley of Rogers, whom I had written about when Gene was a delegate to the  Democratic convention in New York. White House photo. I offered a shoulder to this sleeping toddler in Lhasa when he got too heavy for his brother. I was there to write a chapter on Tibet for a National Geographic Society book in . Photo by John Holden. A chilly day with former Gov. Orval Faubus in Madison County, Arkansas. Photo by Jan Faubus. A dozen card-carrying Communists from Russia visited Greenville, Mississippi, and I took the occasion to write a profile of that unusual Southern town. To keep down political dissension, we all went for a boat ride on the Mississippi River. Unknown photographer. ...