About a year ago, Sohair ElBaz, once CSEP's librarian but by then director of IIT's main library, sent me a clipping from American Libraries (January, 1993). In it, Tom Gaughan described one decision in an editor's life.

He had received a submission, "The imperial presidency and the executive board". It accused members of the Executive Board of the American Library Association (ALA) of spending far too much for their travel, lodging, meals, and entertainment at conferences. The accusations rested on figures in the board's own document.

Gaughan knew immediately that he had a problem. American Libraries is the ALAS news medium. Printing "The imperial presidency" might upset his superiors. It might also damage the 55,000-member association. Gaughan could easily picture hundreds, even thousands, of ill-paid librarians quitting the ALA in disgust.

Gaughan also knew that he could not just reject "The imperial presidency". The ALA, the world's most important voice in support of libraries, had long been a prominent defender of intellectual freedom. To reject the submission because it was controversial could undermine the ALAS ability to speak effectively for intellectual freedom. And, of course, rejecting the paper did not mean it would go unpublished. The author had said that he would seek publication elsewhere if American Libraries refused to publish it.

Wishing guidance, Gaughan turned to the section of the ALAS policy manual governing his journal. American Libraries was, it said, always to represent the "best interests" of the ALA and to keep the journal's pages "scrupulously and faithfully open to all viewpoints of interest and concern to the library profession." That seemed clear enough. Gaughan decided to accept the article-with the understanding that an ALA officer would offer a rebuttal on the facing page-and cleared the decision with ALAS Executive Director. That might have been the end of it. But it was not.

After board members received the manuscript, they held a series of conference calls. Board members spoke with the Executive Director and she spoke with Gaughan and with the article's author. The board requested Inane "corrections". The author agreed to a good number. Nothing troubling about that. But board members also made enough comments about Gaughan's "editorial judgment" that he began to think he would soon need another job. Then a board member, someone Gaughan respected, threatened to sue him, as well as the article's author and the ALA, for libel if the article were published.

Gaughan asked ALAs attorney for advice. The advice was a revelation. The document on which the article relied, though the board's own, was not necessarily the truth. So, though truth is a defense in any suit for libel, the suit might well go to trial before Gaughan had a chance to make his defense. The ALA's insurer would, of course, pay to defend the ALA-but not Gaughan as such. Gaughan would have to hire leis own lawyer if he wanted to be sure his own interests were looked after. If he did, he might win his case and lose his shirt.

Gaughan reviewed his decision to publish. Getting the ALA sued did not seem in its best interests. Getting Sued also didn't seem in his own best interests or in his family's. Wiser, but sadder, Gaughan reversed his decision and rejected the article. He (lid, however, preserve his editorial integrity by explaining-in his journal's "Ed. Notes"-why, this time, American Libraries had not been "scrupulously and faithfully open to all viewpoints".

I think Sohair sent me that "Ed. Notes" because she wanted to know whether I thought the ALA had done the right thing. I wrote back that-like her-I thought that it had not: scandal prospers in darkness.

But, having rendered judgment, I had other thoughts: I too am an editor. I could end up in something like Gaughan's situation. Does HT have libel insurance? Would I be covered if I were sued as an individual? Should I stick up for intellectual freedom while legal fees-like termites-devoured my house, my retirement savings, and my son's education?

After hypothetical panic came realistic reflection. Here is a subject about which I would like to know more, the ethics of editing journals. Here is a topic about which little seems to have been written. Indeed, here is a topic for an issue of Perspectives!

I had to make far fewer phone calls than usual to get commitments for the three pieces printed here. Editors seemed genuinely interested in the topic and anxious to say something about it. They proved, however, busier than the average Perspectives contributor-or, at least, less good at meeting deadlines. I had to make many more than the usual number of calls to get the commitments fulfilled. In the course of these calls, I learned a new term "over-overcommitted" (as in, "I'm afraid I over-overcommitted again"). I learned that from an editor who delivered. Another editor, not represented in this issue, became the first person ever to fail to deliver a piece promised to Perspectives. His slow fade, no doubt excusable, suggests a topic for another Perspectives, the ethics of promising to produce.

The first of our contributors, Gary Hengstler is, like Gaughan, the editor of the medium of a large professional society, the American Bar Association. Hengstler, himself a lawyer, begins with what might be the fundamental question in journal ethics: whose ethics is it? Hengstler's answer is, in effect, that it is hard to say. He is, he thinks, primarily a journalist, rather than a lawyer, even though he is both. His ethics should. then, be determined primarily by the journalist's code of ethics rather than by the lawyer's. That seems plain enough. Yet, in practice, he finds himself trying to satisfy both codes; and sometimes despairing of satisfying either. The editor's job seems to generate a range of problems for which neither code was designed.

Neither American Libraries nor ABA Journal is an academic publication. We might suppose the editor of an academic journal to have life easier. But our other two contributors suggest that we should not suppose that. One, Adil Sharma, writes about editing a scientific journal; the other, Patricia Werhane, about editing an ethics journal. Both devote a good deal of time to the complex interrelation between politics and ethics, the intricate dance by which an editor can (generally) prevent bias, honor power, and publish good work. Both also report moments when the dance stopped and they had to choose. Like Gaughan, both Shaman and Werhane seem to have had moments as editor when they felt very much alone.

This issue concludes with an Editor's Note, initiating a practice I hope will be short-lived, some reflections on the past and future of Perspectives, one editor's response to another editor's failure.