THE GOOD OLD WAYS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000300060002-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 31, 2004
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: December 13, 1971
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

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THE MEDIA
The Good Old Ways
It takes a special kind of courage-or
foolhardiness-to start a general-interest
magazine these days. To revive one that
has already collapsed in spectacular
fashion would seem to be tempting fate.
But Beurt SerVaas, a freewheeling busi-
nessman from Indianapolis, has done it
anyway. And to the surprise of many
magazine pros, he has turned the reborn
.Saturday Evening Post into a modest
What makes the revival even more sur-
prising is that SerVaas is purveying the
same inventory of Rockwellian nostalgia,
upbeat stories and peace-and-quiet hu-
mor that helped lead the maga-
zine to oblivion the first time
around. The new Saturday Eve-
ning Post, which appears quarter-
ly, is chock-a-block full of golden
.oldies, -including Tugboat Annie
and Ted Key cartoons, plus such
topical throwaways as "Pat Nixon
Was My Typing Teacher." About
the only up-to-date feature of
the magazine is its price, a steep
$1 per copy. But there appear to
be customers aplenty. The first
two issues sold out their 500,000-
copy press runs, and for the cur-
rent issue the run has been in-
creased to 550,000. Advertising
dropped sharply with the second
issue ("because no one in the
world thought we'd ever print a
second issue," explains SerVaas)
but it bounced right back with the
third.
Butt: The SerVaas publishing
style is as unorthodox as the Post's
content. For one thing, it is large-
ly,a family affair. SerVaas's wife,
Cory, who has a medical degree
industries, became the last president of
Curtis Publishing in early 1970, acquir-
ing 17 per cent of its stock. At the time,
the Post alone was faced with claims for
$20 million in back taxes, another $20
million in unpaid debts and $400 million
in libel suits. SerVaas quickly settled all
claims and paid for them by selling off the
company's printing plant, tree farms, pa-
per mills and its book and circulation
divisions. That left him in control of the
Post, Holiday and Jack and Jill, a chil-
dren's magazine.
The resurrected Saturday Evening
Post may not be out of the woods yet,
but SerVaas is optimistic. He plans to
switch to a bimonthly publishing sched-
and no previous experience in the The Post: Something old, something new
general-interest magazine field,
serves as executive editor of the Post ule late next year and hopes that two
and writes its "Medical Mailbox" col- ' years from now the Post will become a'
umn; she also doubles as executive editor monthly. That may call for a few altera-
of Holiday, another relic of the Curtis tions in the magazine's approach. "It's
Publishing Co. empire. The SerVaases' inevitable that ' the nostalgia will be
daughter Kris, a Wellesley sophomore, phased out," says managing editor Fred-
edited an excerpt from the writings of eric Birmingham, a former managing edi-
de Tocqueville for one issue of the tor of Esquire. But the Post will probably
Post. And a niece, Sandra SerVaas, re- continue to be a magazine that cele-
cently treated Holiday readers to an brates American life. "The Post is a patri-
account of her trip to Japan. SerVaas also otic magazine without being 100 per cent
startled the magazine industry by setting American," says SerVaas. "I believe in
up shop in Indianapolis after failing to enlightened patriotism. We can represent
get his operation off the ground in New that feeling again, just as the old Post did
York City. "Nobody with talent would so many years ago.
work for me in New York," he recalls.
"We were the butt of every joke and
eventually were ridden out of town. We
brought the poor hulk out here like the
-Revolutionary Army licking its wounds.
We've been mauled and bruised by the
East.'.'
SerVaas,a onetime associate of Wall
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