MID-ATLANTIC WINNER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000100510006-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: May 29, 1972
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/12/21 : CIA-RDP90-00845R000100510006-5
29 MAY 19/Z
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Mid-Atlantic Winner
Going abroad this summer? Afraid
of losing touch with what's happening
at home? Not to worry. Whether you
wind tip in Brussels or Bangkok, the In-
ternational Herald Tribune will tell you
about Charlie Brown's latest hang-up,
what Chrysler stock is selling for,
whether Willie Mays honlered for the
Mets, who won the Democratic pres-
idential nomination and how, and what
columnists from Art Buchwald to Bill
Buckley make of it all.
Yet the Paris-based Trih (circ. 121,-
000) is no mere letter from home. It is
far different from the daily described
by The New Yorker's Janet Flanner as
"the village newspaper" of the' Amer-
ican expatriate colony in Paris. the fa-
vorite of Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude
Stein and Ezra Pound. Increasingly it
serves to inform a widespread audience
about both the U.S. and the world. It is
read with respect in the power centers
of Europe, where English is now the sec-
ond language. Nineteen copies a day go
to Peking, and the Kremlin also sub-
scribes. Editor Murray "Buddy" Weiss,
48, who was the last managing editor
of the New York Herald Tribune, talks
.of a "mid-Atlantic viewpoint" that im-
plies a degree of detachment from both
the U.S. and Europe.
The paper last week marked the
fifth anniversary of its tripartite mar-
riage with the Washington Post and
New York Times in the best editorial
health of its 85-year history.* Many
newsmen believe that for its slim size
-14 to 16 pages-the Trib is the most
readable and informative daily pub-
lished anywhere.
Where else, after all, can a reader
get the best of both the Post and Times,
expertly presented along with comics
and commentary? As a bonus, there is
also the Trib's own crew of offbeat free-
lancers who lend the paper a welcome
a-tcrat i7!. ' ribune
\,n9h l irtnanu?-,? .1 Is:nu ink
air of leisured whimsy. Souren Meli-
kian, a Persian prince, covers art and
artifact auctions with the colorful au-
thority of both expert and buyer. Gas-
tronome Waverly Root writes lovingly
of rare, night-blooming mushrooms and
the perils of absinthe, interspersed
with an occasional reminiscence of
Paris whores of the 1920s. Among Trih
critics, Henry Pleasants comments on
music with competence, and Thomas
Quinn Curtis disagrees rather con-
sistently-but stylishly-with almost
everyone else on which movies are good
and bad.
Broad Choice. Basically the Trib
is an exercise in inspired deskmanship.
er has only one full-tinge gen-
a
The
p
p
eral reporter of its own, and the core ical; it costs as much to place an ad in
of the operation consists of five copy ed- the ''rib as in the Washington Post,
itors working with Weiss in crowded- which has more than four times the cir-
quarters off the Champs-Elysees. Six culation. Yet tf ere is no shortage of ad-
nights a week, they cull streams o& copy vertisers or re dens. Nowadays, only
that issue from 16 Teletypes, providing 18% of the am ence lives in France, v.
the Trib with a broad choice that goes 4017c five years c~o.
beyond the Post's and Times's output. Prosperity a relatively new fact
Material also comes from the Los An- of life at the For much of its his-
geles Times and Chicago's Daily News tory, it was a '-ink case, belying the
efficacy of th...~ vls with which Found-
*James Gordon Bennett Jr., self-exiled son of the er Bennett decorated the papers orig-
New York Herald's founder, started the paper in trial Paris office as a good luck fetish.
1887 as the Paris edition of the Herald. in 1935
it became the European edition of the New York But the Trib has been solidly prolitable
Herald Tribune, which it still strongly resembles - Since 1968, and all enormous os1I Still
in typography. After the parent paper died in holds the place of honor in its ufliccs.
1966, Publisher John Hay Whitney took on the
Post and Times as partners in the Paris survivor. Appropriately, the metal bird is gilded.
and* Sun-Times, in addition to a u
range of U.S. and foreign news agen-
cies. Weiss and his colleagues are free
to choose whichever story says it best
for the international reader. No cope
quotas are imposed by the owner pa-
pers, and big names on both the Post
and New York Times often find their
stories either drastically shortened or
entirely ignored by the 7'rib.
Though in many ways the Trib lives
up to its claim of being "not fundamen-
tally an American newspaper published
abroad, but a newspaper published
abroad by Americans," though its par-
entage is mongrelized, though a pleth-
ora of bylines now appears, Weiss i -a.~
ages nonetheless to keep somethi ...)f
the old New York Herald Tee, .,
tone. It is serious, but not solcn I
New.Yorkers notice a familiar i i.
to some of the editorials, they i.rc not
imagining things. Harry Baehr, t,-l, once
the New York paper's chief editorial
writer, still contributes a few editorials
each week-writing from New York.
To be broadly relevant to readers in
the 70 countries it now reaches, howev-
er, the Trib must be edited to seem as if
it has no local base. Homey coverage is
anathema to Weiss. To report on New
York City's last mayoral election, for in-
stance, he ignored the voluminous file of
the New York Times and published the
Washington Post's version instead; the
Post reporter "told in a few stories all
you needed to know about it in Ncuilly
or Oslo." Yet Weiss can oCCasionally use
his own brand of enterprise. During last
December's Nixon-Pompidou meeting
in the Azores, he sent his entire political
staff, James Goldshorough, to coscr the
event. Goldsliorough heat the competi-
tion-including staffers of both the Post
and Times-to the plain ne\\ s about
dollar devaluation by several hours, al-
lowing the Trih to make its first deadline
with the hottest international story of
the moment.
Gilded Bird. Deadlines are a prob-
lem because of the intricate truck-I rain
plane system that hustles copies around
the world. Distribution accounts for an
astonishing 25~~ of the 7'rih's total pro-
duction costs. The per-copy price is
high, ranging from 28c in Paris to 75c
in Tokyo, because most papers must be
shipped out by air freight or chartered
plane. Advertising rates are ash ononl-
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/12/21 : CIA-RDP90-00845R000100510006-5