THE UNABOMBER MANIFESTO

Hundreds of U.S. newspaper editors are glad they weren't asked to make the tough decision that faced the editors of the New York Times and the Washington Post: to publish or not to publish a 35,000-word manifesto from the killer known as the Unabomber.

Over the past 17 years three people have died and 23 others have been injured by mailed bombs. Authorities have been unsuccessful in tracking down the madman, who demanded that either the Times or the Post publish the almost nonsensical diatribe. He gave the papers a three-month deadline to make a decision.

Last Tuesday -- just five days before the deadline expired -- the Post published the entire text of the manifesto in a special, eight-page section. The cost of publishing it was shared by the Post and the Times.

Many editors were shocked by the decision. They worried that any terrorist -- those who bombed the World Trade Center in New York or the federal building in Oklahoma City or any two-bit criminal with an axe to grind -- might see the publication as an invitation to get almost any wild-eyed thoughts published.

But it is likely that the situation goes much deeper. The Justice Department leaned heavily on the two newspapers to publish the manifesto, perhaps because the FBI thinks it will help lead to an arrest. If so, the decision will be regarded as a good one.

Besides, the editors at both newspaper must have thought that any error in judgment in this situation ought to favor of future innocent victims.