After Holding Off a Year, NY Times Scores Big Scoop re snoop

Pending Book Did Help Push N.Y. Times to Publish Spy Story
L.A. Times: Sources Say Pending Book Did Help Push N.Y. Times to Publish Spy Story
By E&P Staff
Published: December 20, 2005 8:45 AM ET
NEW YORK

Since it broke the big domestic spy program story last week, The New York Times has been accused (from the left) of holding back the story since before the November 2004 election, and (from the right) publishing it only now because of a pending book written by one of its reporters. Today, a respected reporter for the Los Angeles Times claims to have confirmed both notions.

James Rainey's article in the Tuesday edition of the Los Angeles paper opens, "The New York Times first debated publishing a story about secret eavesdropping on Americans as early as last fall, before the 2004 presidential election.

"But the newspaper held the story for more than a year and only revealed the secret wiretaps last Friday, when it became apparent a book by one of its reporters was about to break the news, according to journalists familiar with the paper's internal discussions."

The New York Times had drawn criticism in recent days for not fully explaining circumstances around holding and publishing the story. On Monday night, adding to this, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter revealed on the magazine's Web site that President Bush had "summoned" the newspaper's publisher and executive editor to the Oval Office on December 6 in an attempt to kill the story, to no avail. The Times had failed to disclose this meeting.

According to Rainey, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller rejects the suggestion that the timing of the story was linked to next month's scheduled publication of "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration," by Times reporter James Risen, who co-authored last week's spy scoop.

"The publication was not timed to the Iraqi election, the Patriot Act debate, Jim's forthcoming book or any other event," Keller said in a statement. "We published the story when we did because after much hard work it was fully reported, checked and ready, and because, after listening respectfully to the administration's objections, we were convinced there was no good reason not to publish it."

Keller's paper had reported Friday that it held publication of the story for "a year" because the White House had argued that it "could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny."

Rainey, however, reports today, "The initial Times statements did not say that the paper's internal debate began before the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election ?- in which Iraq and national security questions loomed large ?- or make any reference to Risen's book, due out Jan. 16.

"But two journalists, who declined to be identified, said that editors at the paper were actively considering running the story about the wiretaps before Bush's November showdown with Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts.

"Top editors at the paper eventually decided to hold the story. But the discussion was renewed after the election, with Risen and coauthor of the story, reporter Eric Lichtblau, joining some of the paper's editors in pushing for publication, according to the sources, who said they did not want to be identified because the Times had designated only Keller and a spokeswoman to address the matter.

"'When they realized that it was going to appear in the book anyway, that is when they went ahead and agreed to publish the story," said one of the journalists. 'That's not to say that was their entire consideration, but it was a very important one of them.'

"Both of the journalists said they thought that Times editors were overly cautious in holding the story for more than a year. But they said they thought the delays appeared to be in good faith, with the editors taking to heart the national security concerns raised by the Bush administration."

'Newsweek': Bush Asked Keller, Sulzberger to Stop Spy Story
'Newsweek': Bush Asked Keller, Sulzberger to Stop Spy Story
By E&P Staff
Published: December 19, 2005 8:30 PM ET
NEW YORK

Less than two weeks ago, on December 6, President George W. Bush was so desperate to stop The New York Times' secret spy program story he summoned Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Executive Editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office to try to talk them out of running it, Newsweek reported on its Web site on Monday.

The Newsweek article was written by Jonathan Alter and terms the latest spy scandal "Snoopgate."

"The Times will not comment on the meeting," Alter writes, "but one can only imagine the president's desperation."

The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush has claimed, Alter comments. "No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story?-which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year?-because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker," he alleges.

"This will all play out eventually in congressional committees and in the United States Supreme Court. If the Democrats regain control of Congress, there may even be articles of impeachment introduced. Similar abuse of power was part of the impeachment charge brought against Richard Nixon in 1974.

"In the meantime, it is unlikely that Bush will echo President Kennedy in 1961. After JFK managed to tone down a New York Times story by Tad Szulc on the Bay of Pigs invasion, he confided to Times editor Turner Catledge that he wished the paper had printed the whole story because it might have spared him such a stunning defeat in Cuba.

"This time, the president knew publication would cause him great embarrassment and trouble for the rest of his presidency. It was for that reason?-and less out of genuine concern about national security?-that George W. Bush tried so hard to kill the New York Times story."

At his Monday press conference, the president denounced the leaks to the newspaper and said the Justice Dept. was looking into it:

"There is a process that goes on inside the Justice Department about leaks, and I presume that process is moving forward. My personal opinion is it was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy."

'N.Y. Times' Completes Long Pass--Then Fumbles
'N.Y. Times' Completes Long Pass--Then Fumbles
By Greg Mitchell
December 20, 2005

Its scoop about the domestic spying program should stay in the spotlight but instead the newspaper itself is becoming the story. Revelations in the past few hours about its decision to hold, then publish, the spy story -- and the paper's lack of transparency -- raise serious leadership questions once again.

The New York Times can't seem to win for losing. It scores its biggest scoop of the year, with its domestic spying revelations, and wins wide praise. At the same time it gets hammered from left, right and even some in the middle for holding the story for a year, and then belatedly timing publication either to the Patriot Act debate and/or an upcoming book?-and being less than transparent about the whole kit and caboodle.

Will Bunch, the Philadelphia Daily News reporter and blogger, said it best today with this simple question: "Is there a word in the English language that means ?'stunned' and ?'not stunned' at the same time?"

He could have been referring to the "what's next?" element of this, after the Times' bungling of WMDs, the Judith Miller matter and, among other things, the recent Ken Auletta piece about the newspaper's publisher in The New Yorker. What Bunch actually meant was that he had predicted days ago that it would soon emerge that the Times had the spy piece before the November 2004 election and failed to run it, costing John Kerry the presidency. This morning, of course, the Los Angeles Times cited two sources inside the Times confirming that indeed a "debate" about running the piece pre-election did indeed take place.

Also in the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction category we have Matt Drudge wildly alleging within minutes of the story breaking last Friday that it was somehow tied to publication of a book by one of the co-authors, James Risen, next month. Fat chance! The L.A. Times, citing the same inside sources, also confirmed that allegation today, saying it was at least part of the reason the Times finally acted now. The Times still denies this.

Adding to the bizarre picture, we have Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, and not someone at the Times, recounting the summoning of the Times' publisher and executive editor to the Oval Office by President Bush on December 6 in a final attempt to forestall the much-delayed but now on-track story. True? The Times has not yet confirmed, but then it has said little overall about the delay-then-publish angle.

On the other hand, even E&P scooped the paper when Judy Miller used her get-out-of-jail card this past autumn.

Meanwhile, the Times threatens to become the story?-instead of the story that it (finally) broke. If so, George Bush, the true Teflon president, wins again.

It all makes the Miller affair seem sane and simple in comparison. The spy story, when published, set off angry editorials, including one in the Times itself, blasting the White House, and even got Democrats, many legal scholars and some Republicans in Congress bent out of shape, a few even mentioning the "IO" words (impeachable offense)?-and yet the newspaper itself was okay with keeping it under wraps for more than a year?

I'm holding off further judgment, awaiting further word from the Times--possibly, it will have a compelling explanation for all this. But so far what we've gotten from Executive Editor Bill Keller is mainly this: the Times held off publication because the White House assured senior editors of The Times "that a variety of legal checks had been imposed that satisfied everyone involved that the program raised no legal questions."

No wonder the Times seems a tad defensive at the moment.
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Greg Mitchell ([email protected]) is editor of E&P.

Is the Times Even More Cut Off than George Bush?
Paper in a Bubble: Is the Times Even More Cut Off than George Bush?
Arianna Huffington
12.19.2005

More from French Polynesia. We are now in Moorea, a stunning little island 9 miles northwest of Tahiti. As a Greek, I probably should not be saying this, but this is the most beautiful island I've ever seen. It's easy to see why Marlon Brando fell in love with the area when he was here in 1960 scouting locations for "Mutiny on the Bounty" -- parts of which were shot in Moorea -- and eventually bought the small neighboring island of Tetiaroa.

In between feeding the stingrays, I'm doing my best to keep up with the news. The NSA surveillance story isn't big news here. The top stories in recent copies of the Tahiti Presse I picked up were about a budget battle between President Temaru and the opposition party (which is threatening to challenge the budget in court), and the Temaru administration's hope that a new film about a Tahitian fisherman who survived 118 days after being lost at sea, will draw tourists to the area.

But, thankfully I can access the Internet, so I've been able to watch online as the New York Times blows it once again.

Okay, set your watch: it's now officially time to be worried about the future of the erstwhile paper of record.

What were Sulzberger and company thinking? There Pinch was, prancing around for the last year under the illusion that his defense of Judy Miller was going to be his reputation-making Pentagon Papers moment, while doing the exact opposite of what his father did with the Pentagon Papers by sitting on this bombshell story for a year.

Now, instead of crusading journalists, Sulzberger and his editors look like a bunch of schmucks -- or, worse, a bunch of toadies doing the White House's bidding.

Adding big-time to the schmuck factor was Bill Keller's ludicrous explanation that the Times agreed to sit on the story after the White House "assured senior editors of the Times that a variety of legal checks had been imposed that satisfied everyone involved that the program raised no legal questions...As we have done before in rare instances when faced with a convincing national security argument, we agreed not to publish at that time."

Oh, my god. Where to begin?

Who is "everyone involved?" Sulzberger? Keller? Karl Rove? And exactly how were they "satisfied"? Given that members of Bush's own party -- like Arlen Specter, who is now planning hearings -- are obviously not"satisfied," what kind of miniscule satisfaction threshold does the Times have? Even given all that we learned from the Miller debacle, I would have assumed the paper would still set the bar just a tad higher than members of Bush's own party.

And how did the Timesmen come by that unanimous satisfaction? It's not like the administration's credibility problems weren't already well-known known before it asked the Times to keep its readers in the dark. (For a nice list of what we already knew about Bush a year ago, check out this post at First Draft).

And since when is being faced with the tired "national security argument" enough to frighten away the Times? (It's the same ploy John Mitchell used when trying to get Pinch's dad to spike the Pentagon Papers story in '71). C'mon, let's be real: isn't invoking national security Bush's default setting?

Back in October, we noted how the Times' handling of the Miller case might have helped Bush win re-election. And now we learn that the paper did Bush/Cheney 2004 another huge favor by not going with the spy story when it first had it -- before the election. As Will Bunch puts it in this terrific post, "Simply put, the Bush White House gamed the media in 2004... Voters could have gone to the polls on Election Day, Nov. 4, 2004, knowing that Bush was spying on Americans, that a key White House aide was charged with felonies, and that the initial rationales for Iraq were bogus." And check out emptywheel for chapter and verse on the connections between the Miller and NSA spying stories.

So here's the inevitable question all this raises: What else is the Times sitting on? How many other instances of Bush administration illegality has the Times been "satisfied" that we don't need to know. Could we at least have a rough estimate?

There's been much talk about the bubble that George Bush lives in, but if he ever finds that his model is too porous, he should check out the one that Sulzberger, Keller, and the Times have crafted for themselves.

Even after the Miller fiasco, it's clear that those in charge of the Times still haven't figured out the fundamental nature of the crisis that has arisen between the paper and its readers. So let me spell it out for them:

The paper is in grave danger of losing its relevance because the public can no longer trust that the very first instinct of the Times when it comes across a piece of news is, "Is this something important for our readers to know?" instead of, "Who might we piss off if we publish this?"

The future of the Times hinges on its ability to convince its readers that its loyalty flows to the public and not to the powers-that-be.

After the Supreme Court freed the Times to resume publication of the Pentagon Paper in 1971, Times managing Abe Rosenthal was asked whether some degree of antagonism between the government and the press was "a sign of good health in both parties." He replied: "I think it is. I don't think we'll ever see the day, nor should we see the day, when we're in bed together."

It's a tragedy that Abe's crystal ball gazing turned out to be so wrong.

Media Veterans, NYT Staffers, re Latest Spy Story Reports
Media Veterans, NYT Staffers, Weigh in On Latest Spy Story Reports
By Joe Strupp
Published: December 20, 2005
NEW YORK

Reports in the past day that The New York Times held its secret spying story since before election day 2004, and may have decided to finally publish the bombshell partly to beat a book on the subject, have sparked new criticism of the paper from media veterans for its handling of the sensitive story. As Marvin Kalb put it: "This is, again, a story large enough for journalists to scratch their heads."

But while most urged the paper to better explain what went into the decision-making process, others praised the Times' journalistic effort and stressed that the onus should be on what the Bush administration is doing, not the paper.

"I think the Times certainly deserved credit for breaking a good story," said Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists and a former Times Washington bureau chief. "But that story needed an editor's note that described why they were publishing it and why they held it. The timing and the reasons for holding it raise questions."

In the Times newsroom, meanwhile, few staffers would comment, even off the record, on how the latest controversy had affected the paper that is still reeling from the Judy Miller debacle. Some noted a weariness over the paper continuing to be hammered for its actions, while others were angry that people were ignoring the fact that the paper broke a major story and continued to break others.

"I think people were pleased with the story, that we were back in the game, that we broke it," said Alex Berenson, a six-year Times reporter. "But we've turned into a target -- we have always been a target. It is the way it is. It is the result of some self-inflicted wounds, but I'd say we are doing our job."

Adds one Times staffer who did not want to be identified: "It's one more thing. When are we going to get out from under this or is this a permanent state now?"

Marvin Kalb, the veteran TV journalist and senior fellow at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, said that if reports that the story was timed to beat the upcoming book by reporter James Risen are true, that is cause for concern. "It would be wise for the Times to explain it as soon as it can," Kalb said. "If [Executive Editor] Bill Keller had intended to run the story earlier and delayed it to coincide with the publication of his reporter's book, I think that is a very large mistake."

The Times "owes an explanation to its readers of why it published when it did," said Alex Jones, a former Times media reporter and co-author of "The Trust," a book about the newspaper's family history. "I feel like I don't understand it."

Tom Rosenstiel, a former dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, also took issue with the Times' approach to explaining its actions. "I think it is obviously better for the Times to reveal any facts about the timing that were germane than to have them leak out in Newsweek or the L.A. Times," he said. "They've made an attempt to be transparent, but they didn't do enough. They raise more questions than they've answered."

Risen, who wrote last Friday's spy story with Eric Lichtblau, did not return calls seeking comment on Tuesday's revelations, while New York Times officials also declined to respond to questions from E&P about the latest reports.

On top of everything else, Newsweek claims that Bush "summoned" the New York Times' executive editor and publisher to a meeting this month to talk them out of running the story, which it had held for over a year.

The revelation that the president had met with Times officials to seek a further delay of the story was not a complete surprise to some news veterans, although they were perplexed at why the paper did not disclose that meeting in the original story. "You want news organizations to deliberate when there is a challenge on national security grounds," Rosenstiel said of the meeting with Bush. "The news organization has to evaluate." But, he added, more disclosure of the meeting was warranted: "Ten years ago, it is possible that a news organization would have said nothing. But we are beyond that."

Kovach, who served as the Times' Washington bureau chief from 1979 to 1987, said Bush's effort to delay publication is not unusual for a president, citing several instances during his tenure in D.C. of similar administration moves. He noted a 1980 phone call from Ronald Reagan to then-publisher Arthur Sulzberger Sr., asking that the paper not publish findings that the U.S. was spying on the Soviet Union from locations in China. "The argument was that if we ran the story, China would be embarrassed and want us out," Kovach said. "I was opposed to holding it, but we did and someone else broke it."

Still, Kovach was surprised that the Times would not mention the Bush meeting as part of a full disclosure. "I don't know what would be wrong with saying the president had [directly] asked them to hold it," he said. "As much information as possible is important to the reader. They have to be able to depend on you to tell them."

Others say that the powerful journalism underlying this latest controversy should be the issue, not the related elements. Some even accused the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek of going after the spy story out of jealousy for being beaten. "There is a great scoop getting lost in the shuffle," said one reporter who requested anonymity. "But, once again, why can't top editors be straight about what's going on? There are a lot of questions about why wait a year and why now?"

So what does this mean to the Times' image and reputation going forward?

"I think it is still the best newspaper by far in the nation," said Gene Roberts, the legendary former Philadelphia Inquirer editor, who also served as Times managing editor from 1994 to 1997. "They are human and make mistakes as any organization composed of humans is going to make. I don't buy all of this trouncing on them."

Rosenstiel agreed, saying, "the paper's image and reputation took some hits on Judy Miller, but they're looking a lot better today journalistically than they did a month ago," he said. "They are still playing a watchdog role."

For Kalb, however, the lack of a clear explanation, especially after the Miller scandal, is not helpful. "The Times is too central, too important, and too fundamental to the heart of American journalism to be in the middle of a series of chronic crises," he said. "The Times has to be setting an example for the rest of American journalism. It shouldn't be constantly having to explain why it did this or did that."

His Shorenstein Center colleague, Alex Jones, said the paper may have had a good reason for doing what it did, but it needs to tell readers. "We are entitled to know," he said. When asked if this controversy combined with the Miller flap would cause permanent harm to the Times, he said, "It is a paper with a black eye, but these things heal."
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Joe Strupp ([email protected]) is a senior editor at E&P.

Why Times Ran Wiretap Story, Defying Bush
Why Times Ran Wiretap Story, Defying Bush
By: Gabriel Sherman
New York Observer
Date: 12/26/2005

On the afternoon of Dec. 15, New York Times executives put the paper's preferred First Amendment lawyer, Floyd Abrams, on standby. In the pipeline for the next day's paper was a story that President George W. Bush had specifically asked the paper not to run, revealing that the National Security Agency had been wiretapping Americans without using warrants.

The President had made the request in person, nine days before, in an Oval Office meeting with publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., executive editor Bill Keller and Washington bureau chief Phil Taubman, according to Times sources familiar with the meeting.

That Dec. 6 session with Mr. Bush was the culmination of a 14-month struggle between The Times and the White House?-and a parallel struggle behind the scenes at The Times?-over the wiretapping story. In the end, Mr. Abrams' services were not needed. The piece made it to press without further incident.

But the story, which began with reporter James Risen and was eventually written by Mr. Risen and Eric Lichtblau, very nearly didn't reach that endgame at all. In one paragraph, the piece disclosed that the White House had objected to the article?-"arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations"?-and that The Times had "delayed publication for a year."

In fact, multiple Times sources said that the story had come up more than a year ago?-specifically, before the 2004 election. After The Times decided not to publish it at that time, Mr. Risen went away on book leave, and his piece was shelved and regarded as dead, according to a Times source.

"I'm not going to talk about the back story to the story," Mr. Keller said by phone on Dec. 20. "Maybe another time and another subject."

The direct executive-branch involvement echoed a legendary?-and notorious?- episode in Times history, when then-Washington bureau chief James (Scotty) Reston and publisher Orvil Dryfoos, acceding to official pressure, quashed coverage of the specifics of the impending Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. The infighting over that decision (and the obvious fallout from it) led to one of the paper's first-ever episodes of public self-criticism.

But in this case, discussion of the Dec. 16 wiretap piece has been off-limits since it was published. "Someone on high told reporters not to talk about it," a Washington bureau source said.

So The Times, after a year of being battered by scoops from competitors like The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times on national-security stories, has a blockbuster of its own?-but has to discuss it sotto voce, if at all.

The paper made one apparent comment on its interactions with the White House: The day the wiretap story appeared, editors assigned reporter Scott Shane to write a next-day piece about the Bush administration's overextension of executive power.

Through a spokesperson, Mr. Sulzberger declined to comment. Managing editor Jill Abramson, Mr. Taubman, Mr. Risen and Mr. Lichtblau all declined to comment.

Mr. Risen has had difficulties in the past getting traction with Times editors on a disputed topic. In fall 2003, he unsuccessfully pressed for more skeptical coverage of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, to counterbalance the work of Judith Miller.

Mr. Risen returned from his book leave in June of 2005. He soon began agitating to revive the wiretapping piece and get it into the paper, according to bureau sources.

According to multiple Times sources, the decision to move forward with the story was accelerated by the forthcoming publication of Mr. Risen's book, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.

By this past fall, according to a source familiar with the matter, Mr. Taubman was in a parallel series of discussions: with senior Bush administration officials over the paper's desire to publish the story, and with Mr. Risen over the content of the book.

Mr. Risen's book is due out Jan. 16. The link between the timing of the book and the piece was reported by the Drudge Report the day the wiretap piece came out, with the implication that there was a promotional tie-in involved. On Dec. 20, the Los Angeles Times reported the connection and noted that the original story had predated last year's election. That same morning, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter wrote an online piece revealing The Times' summit with the President.

In a statement to the Los Angeles Times, Mr. Keller dismissed the role of Mr. Risen's book and a variety of other factors in determining when the piece would run: "The publication was not timed to the Iraqi election, the Patriot Act debate, Jim's forthcoming book or any other event. We published the story when we did because after much hard work it was fully reported, checked and ready, and because, after listening respectfully to the Administration's objections, we were convinced there was no good reason not to publish it."

But Times sources said that Mr. Risen's book does include the revelation about the secret N.S.A. surveillance program. That left Mr. Taubman and his superiors in the position of having to resolve The Times' dispute with the administration before Mr. Risen could moot their legal and ethical concerns?-and scoop his own paper.

The Free Press, Mr. Risen's publisher, is not circulating galleys or otherwise making the content available before the book goes on sale. "We're not giving any comments about the content of the book until the book comes out next month," a Free Press spokesperson said.

We did not want to become another version of Talk magazine," Mort Zuckerman said on the phone from Aspen, Colo.

It was Dec. 19, and Mr. Zuckerman was explaining his decision to pull the plug on Radar magazine. He had used the same language on the morning of Dec. 16 when he addressed the staff: He didn't want to have another Talk.

The audience winced.

Several staffers at this latest version of Maer Roshan's on-again-off-again-on-again-off-again magazine project had also been among those scrambling for the lifeboats in 2002, when Talk went under?-including Mr. Roshan himself.

But Radar would not be Talk. Talk lasted nearly two and a half years from its publicity-splashed launch till it slipped beneath the waves. Despite a reputed $12 million investment, Mr. Zuckerman scuttled Radar (version 2.0) after a mere three issues, with the fourth finished but unprinted.

What remained, amid the flotsam, was ill will and confusion. Where had all the money gone? And why? And whose fault was it?

On Dec. 15, the day after the closure was announced, Mr. Zuckerman dispatched U.S. News president Bill Holiber and a human-resources rep to meet with the staff to discuss severance. Staffers were granted two weeks' pay, plus another week for every six months of service?-a span that the magazine itself had scarcely met. After several pointed questions, Mr. Holiber offered to arrange for Mr. Zuckerman to address the staff.

By the time Mr. Zuckerman arrived the next morning, two different versions of the story had made it into the press. The New York Times had reported that the magazine was financially moribund; Page Six had written that Mr. Zuckerman had grown disenchanted with the magazine's sniping at his rich and powerful friends.

At the head of the conference-room table in the magazine's 23rd Street offices, Mr. Zuckerman pressed the financial version, telling his soon-to-be-ex-employees that he could see no end to the downturn in magazine advertising and that he could not sustain Radar without a massive infusion of capital.

Mr. Zuckerman said he had told Mr. Roshan four months ago to cut costs and line up new investors.

At that, Mr. Roshan visibly shook his head in disagreement, according to a person present.

"I was never informed we would need additional investors until Nov. 2, when I was on vacation in Florida," Mr. Roshan said by phone.

Mr. Roshan said he was then told simply to find a replacement for Mr. Zuckerman's co-investor, Jeffrey Epstein.

"Initially, I was directed to find an investor to cover Jeffrey's portion of Radar's budget," Mr. Roshan said. "A few weeks later, I was informed I'd have to find an investor to cover Mort's portion as well. In early November, I was told I'd have a couple of months to find investors. A few days later, my deadline was reduced to a few weeks, which meant that in the midst of the holiday season, while closing this issue and trying to get ad pages up under Mort's directive, I'd have to find investors willing to put up $10 million right away."

"That's total nonsense," Mr. Zuckerman said. "… I had that conversation with Maer many times …. Four months ago, I had explicit conversations with him. I only know one language, and that's English. I could not be clearer about it."

Mr. Zuckerman said he had told Mr. Roshan that there wasn't enough advertising. The magazine, he said, had only taken in about $430,000 in advertising for all three issues combined, when the business plan had projected taking in $500,000 per issue.

As for the New York Post's account that media machers, including Mike Ovitz and David Pecker, had pressured Mr. Zuckerman to close the magazine, he said it was "total nonsense."

"There's only one reason, and it's the financial reason," he said. "I'm a little speechless about that article. It's a little ridiculous."

Mr. Zuckerman said he was not, however, completely satisfied with Radar's editorial tone.

"The major articles and the major thrust of the magazine I thought were very good," he said. "The shorter stuff was trying too hard to be humorous, and some of it came off as being nasty. And that was the part of the magazine where I had the most concern."

The unpublished fourth issue remains in the magazine's production department. It would have included a poll of 100 Hollywood insiders dishing on entertainment-business secrets, a profile of Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman, and an interview with the singing white-supremacist twins Lynx and Lamb Gaede. The cover featured naked images representing Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, their privates hidden by a film-scene clapper.

?-G.S.