In Memory of Nick B. Williams : The founding editor of the modern Times

Nick B. Williams, who died Wednesday at 85, was the editor who set in motion the changes in The Times that have made it what it is today.

When he took the helm in 1958, the paper was perceived at times to be partisan and unambitious. When he relinquished it in 1971, it was commonly regarded as on its way to the high ground of American journalism.

It was Williams’ task, as he saw it, to carry out Publisher Otis Chandler’s dreams for The Times to achieve greatness, even as Los Angeles was emerging as a great world city, without wrenching it too abruptly from a legacy that tracked the history and growth of the region. To those of us fortunate to work with him, his style was a fascinating mixture of canny caution and innovative boldness.

To the younger staff members whom he and Otis Chandler brought on to help modernize the paper, he would recite the cautionary tale of the New York World newspaper, which had some terrific journalists but had lost touch with its readers and died.

With readers and staff members who resisted--sometimes bitterly--any changes, he would listen with utmost politeness and proceed on course resolutely.

He was beset, as editors of The Times still are, by complaints about the stark cartoons of Paul Conrad, so he devised a long letter of response in which he confessed to more than once having wished himself to “break Conrad’s drawing arm,” but then presented eloquently the case for a political cartoonist’s illumination of public issues with the harsh light of satire.

Williams spoke in a much-imitated squeaky high voice; he wrote his innumerable memos charting the course of the paper in a silken, subtle prose that many admired and none could match.

Nick Williams’ mark on The Times is indelible. So is his place in the hearts of those who knew and loved him.