A Mystery of the Universe   

If there is any one single explanation for the unwavering single-mindedness of the Journal's vision, it would have to be Robert L. Bartley. On most days Bartley, 56, can be found on the ninth floor of the World Financial Center, overlooking the Hudson. Although at the epicenter of bustling Wall Street and the chaotic Dow Jones news enterprises, the editorial offices are an oasis of calm.

For the editor of what is perhaps America's most influential editorial page, he is surprisingly unimposing, almost shy. His awkwardness with strangers and in front of a crowd is painful to watch.

But Bartley is not paid for his public persona, and this slight man with thick glasses has more than earned his keep over the two decades he has headed the Wall Street Journal editorial page. He graduated from Iowa State University in 1959, got his master's degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin in 1962, and then, a few months later, joined the paper as a reporter. He went to work for the editorial page in 1964, and after the sudden death of Joe Evans in 1972, inherited the top job at the age of 34. He leapfrogged over many older, more experienced men due in large part to the recommendation of Vermont Connecticut Royster, his mentor and former editorial page editor.

In his 21-year tenure as boss, Bartley has transformed his dominion, stretching it from one to two pages of editorials, and adding the "Arts & Leisure" section. In 1980, he won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.

Bartley's edge is his anger. In much of his writing on cultural and social issues he reveals his disenchantment with the present and his deep nostalgia for the past. His model is Ames, Iowa, the small town where he grew up. He says he still would prefer to live there, but his work is in lower Manhattan. So he lives with his wife in Brooklyn, where they have raised three daughters.

ent style. Dorothy Rabinowitz, one of his charges, insists Bartley is charming company at dinner parties as well. When Raymond Sokolov, the editor of the "Arts & Leisure" page, is asked to explain the seeming contradiction between Bartley in person and Bartley in print, he replies, "It is one of the mysteries of the universe." – L.K.