1973-1980 Limits: Witness: John Stacks

Working from a leak from the Supreme Court, the magazine published an account of the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion-rights decision just as the court announced it. Warren Burger, who was then Chief Justice, was infuriated and demanded a meeting with TIME's editors. A group of them, including editor-in-chief Hedley Donovan, came down from New York to the Washington bureau, where I was then news editor, and we arranged a dinner in the bureau's offices on 16th Street.

Throughout the meal, Burger argued that it was unconscionable to scoop the court, that using information from clerks, whom he assumed were the...

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