It's a book that celebrates our right of free speech, and I think an honest answer in terms of myself is that after a lot of years of dealing with issues...

I don't think so. I think certain kinds of speech -- the raucous, uninhibited American habits of razzing our politicians and our public figures -- you...

Sullivan was a city commissioner of Montgomery, Alabama, in the '60s who sued the New York Times and some others after we carried an advertisement for...

Yes. I'll give credit to the Random House production people who did a very nice job of fitting it in.

It ran a full page in the New York Times on March 29, 1960. I ought to say a word about that, I think. We forget, or some of us are too young to remember,...

Not just the entertainers, but Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Robinson. They were believers in the civil rights movement who were rallied to this ad, I suppose....

I was covering the Supreme Court of the United States for the New York Times. I was a reporter at the court.

I did, but it didn't really come to my attention. I mean it didn't -- what shall I say? -- grip my mind until the lawsuit began. It was a lawsuit that...

Yes, in the end in very dramatic circumstances -- at least I think so -- the Supreme Court reversed that $500,000 judgment and really said with James...

Just short of four years.

I was covering the Supreme Court. I wrote quite a lot about it in terms of Supreme Court coverage. Long stories. There were some other defendants. Sullivan...

I think the honest answer to that is no. They understood that it was important for the civil rights movement. They understood it was important for the...

I had obtained, with his permission, from the manuscript division of the Library of Congress all of his written materials on the case, which included...

After much difficulty, which we could go into, I hope, six members of the court joined in Justice Brennan's opinion and three others took a more all-out...

Please.

I think it is fair to say it may have been the Supreme Court that in our entire history was the most devoted to individual liberty. It had the strongest...

Twice.

Do I have to do something else?

My wife is a hard-working lawyer and she regards being a columnist as a sort of semi-retired luxury, but two ideas a week is about the limit of human...

For seven years.

I'm not a lawyer.

I had spent a year as a Neiman fellow at Harvard and I was, in fact, a graduate of Harvard College. A Neiman fellow is a journalist chosen to go back...

New York City.

Are we getting personal now? My father went to Harvard. Maybe that helped.

Oh, no. No, no. My father came from a typical middle class business family. It was a family of 11. He and three of his brothers were in the cotton textile...

In high school. I was a high school newspaper editor, and then college.

Absolutely.

To me the great thing about it is the willingness to pour resources and talent into covering the most important events facing the country. Let me give...

: Why can the New York Times do that and almost no other paper in the country do it? Some others do publish texts but not to the extent the Times does.

: When you got out of Harvard did you go right to the New York Times?

: Yes.

: What do you consider the charge to you by the paper or the syndicate? Is your column syndicated across the country through the New York Times?

: Every week when you write a column, what's the mission?

: You spend most of the time on what kind of a subject?

: Back to this book, "Make No Law," when did you first think that there was a need for a book?

: You live in Boston.

: Now, when you headed out to write this you say you changed your views on this. Did you change your views on the First Amendment or on New York Times...

But it's not like that. Not at all. That's what gradually got a hold of my consciousness because it really wasn't until very recently that the courts,...

I don't agree with that. First of all, let me emphasize, then we can come back to this, that this is not a case about newspapers. This is a case that's...

: Let's go back, again, to the beginning of all of this. The ad was taken out in March of 1960.

: Published in the New York Times. One day only?

: How much did it cost them?

: The suit was brought how soon after that?

: And then what happened?

The Alabama law of libel was if there are any mistakes in a statement, however trivial, the defendant -- the publisher -- loses the defense of truth....

The circuit court of Montgomery, Alabama -- a state court.

It went to the Supreme Court of Alabama.

Oh, it was affirmed. The Supreme Court of Alabama upheld the logic of the case, of the judge's decision, and indeed broadened it out and made it, I...

There was only one recourse left, and that was to ask the Supreme Court of the United States to review this. It only has the power to review such a...

Libel is a very old form of action at law, coming down from English common law, which means a damaging statement about somebody.

Slander is oral and libel is written. It's printed, or now broadcast. If I simply in a conversation say something mean and untruthful about you that's...

Oh, I found out some things about Judge Jones, and I talked with the lawyers -- those who are still living, and most of them were; not all, but most...

The lawyer for the New York Times, the principal lawyer who represented us in the Supreme Court Professor Herbert Weschler of the Columbia Law School....

No. He died rather shortly after this case was decided, as did Judge Jones. They are gone. One of Herbert Weschler's assistants on the case who later...

Yes, he did, but I will tell you that we didn't have much oral discussion. I learned so much from his documents, more than I think any judge could be...

He was asked to come into the case shortly before the case was put to the Alabama Supreme Court. He began, then, to shape an argument which, as I say,...

I really don't, but I think it was rather a modest sum by today's standards. It wasn't one of these colossal sums. Herbert Weschler was a professor...

: After the Alabama Supreme Court finished with this case, how long was there between that point and when they petitioned the Supreme Court and got...

: Were you in the courtroom when this case was argued?

: Do you remember it?

: What do you remember about the day? What do you remember about the atmosphere in the court?

: How did you find out the detail that Justice Brennan asked for, I believe, either Mr. Weschler or the other attorney to, "Speak up, I can't hear you."

: Did that make a difference in that classroom when they were able to hear that?

: Oral argument. You point out that the oral argument used to be an hour on each side and now it's only a half hour on each side. How come it changed?

: Had Professor Weschler won this case even before he even got in the courtroom, in the briefs?

: Sure.

They prosecuted the editors and the publishers of those newspapers before the presidential election of 1800. Tried to shut up the opposition. There...

Oh, I suppose you can hardly say that Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence and was this very important president, was second...

John Marshall was a Federalist. He was a candidate for Congress. He ran as a Federalist, and he naturally, inevitably, supported the Sedition Act or...

Oh, very recently. I used to take my class down every year. I've forgotten what the last argument I heard was, but within the last year or so. Certainly...

Those are two really big questions, and I'll take your second one first. I think the present court has held quite securely -- not entirely, but really...

: Are you different when you speak, like in a conversation like this, than when you sit and write your column -- not your book, but when you write your...

: When do you know that you've written a column that matters?

: Have you noticed any change over the years or today in how much people read columns and what they did 15 years ago?

: Books. You've had another book, "Gideon's Trumpet." What was that about?

: When did you write it?

: Can you still buy it?

: What do people usually buy it for? Do they use it for teaching?

: I know the book hasn't been out that long, but what's the early reaction to "Make No Law," this book about the New York Times vs. Sullivan case?

: Who is outraged by what you think is so important? Is there anybody in our society who comes up to you and says, "Tony Lewis, I just totally disagree...

: What kind of knowledge level have you found when you're talking to either the radio audience or call-in shows about New York Times vs. Sullivan?

Very early on in its history in a letter to President Washington, the Court said, "We do not give abstract decisions. We only decide concrete, factual...

The practice then was that on the Friday of each week of arguments, the members of the court at their weekly conference -- it was not every week but...

: We get the impression today that there's no discussion in that conference, a back-and-forth argument about whether you're for or against a case. Is...

: People are going to have to buy your book to get all of the little details because we're about out of time. But that period there where Justice Brennan...

: Let me ask you, how do you know that?

: How do you know about a telephone conversation?

: Isn't it unusual to know these kind of little details?

: Justice Harlan was the grandson of another justice.

: Any other justice have a tough time going along with this decision?

: Do you have another book in you?

: Is there another case that is as intriguing as New York Times vs. Sullivan for you right now?

: What's the best thing somebody can tell you 10 years from now about this book?

: Anthony Lewis, this is your book, "Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment." Anthony Lewis is a columnist for the New York Times, and...