No. 2 Man

Jacob Dewey Gortatowsky, whose name means nothing to the public, last week firmed his hold as No. 2 editorial man in the Hearst empire. For 29 years he has been a faithful Hearstling, for the past five years general manager of the 17 Hearst papers. With the death of Joe Connolly (TIME, April 30) he fell heir to two more jobs : running Hearst's International News Service and giant King Features (33 com ics, Winchell, Pegler, etc.).

Southern Murmur. "Gorty" Gortatowsky's office in Manhattan's bustling Hearst Publications Building has no name on the door. It is tucked down a back hall, past a Good Housekeeping beauty clinic. The only thing that distinguishes its ascetic furnishings is a miniature American flag on the desk, standard equipment for all top Hearst executives.

Gortatowsky's physical slightness is concealed by skilled double-breasted tailor ing; his keen-edged, taskmasterish mind is concealed by a lulling Southern murmur and a beatific smile. Of all ways to get ahead in the Hearst empire--beyond the first essential, obedience--Gorty chose one of the shrewdest: unobtrusiveness.

The son of a Confederate soldier, he went to small North Georgia College at the foot of the Blue Ridge mountains. He quit his first reporting job on the Atlanta Constitution "because they weren't paying me enough money; they paid me nothing." Eight years later, after working on smaller Georgia papers, he was invited back to the Constitution--as the boy-wonder managing editor, aged 27.

He didn't like the sloppy way a Hearst syndicate sent its features to the Constitution, and wrote long letters to the syndicate, saying so. The story (Gorta-towsky calls it mostly legend) is that Hearst thereupon wired him: "If you know so damned much about running a syndicate, why don't you come up and help run ours?" He has been working for Hearst since 1916.

Empire Plan. Now, as general manager, Gortatowsky has a lot to say about how the Hearst papers are run, but like all well-mannered Hearst brass hats, would have you believe that "The Chief" does it all himself. This disavowal of credit also enables him to disavow responsibility for Hearstian yellow jingoism.

With Gortatowsky as operating head of the newspapers, and with the trio of Hanes, Huberth and Berlin in control of Hearst finances (TIME, Feb. 5), the papers are set to run even without William Randolph Hearst.- Should they be passed on to the five Hearst sons, none of whom has shown much of his father's talent for running bad newspapers successfully, they might be in a position to misguide, but not to wreck, the empire.

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