He was also a rewriteman, a general assignment reporter and a political reporter at The Times's City Hall bureau and in Albany.

After working as a copy boy and then a reporter at The New York Journal-American, he joined The New York Herald Tribune as a night rewriteman.

After two years in the Army, he returned to The Times and made his first major mark as a rewriteman in July 1956 by capturing the drama and desperation of the sinking of the Italian liner Andrea Doria off Nantucket Lightship after a collision with the Swedish ship Stockholm.