It turns out that Paul Samuelson did submit one more column to Newsweek, after Milton Friedman’s “Open Letter on Grants” -- and the affair unfolded in 1981, not 1984 as I wrote. Thanks once again to Samuelson biographer Roger Backhouse, whose files are way better than mine.
The debate might have been interesting. Unfortunally I have not seen it.
I remember hearing that Samuelson was the first to call Milton after he had bypass surgery in the mid seventies.