Free Speech for the Boss

The New Dealing afternoon New York Post (circ. 351,439) hemmed and hawed until five days before the election and then endorsed Democrat Averell Harriman for re-election as New York Governor. At that eleventh hour its minced-hearted editorial ("Whatever his failures and shortcomings . . . we favor Harriman's re-election") read as if a myopic makeup man had misplaced several paragraphs. Post readers thought all this rather strange, but it was only the beginning.

The very day after the Harriman endorsement, Post Publisher Dorothy Schiff in her "Dear Reader" column, wrote warmly of "ebullient" Nelson Rockefeller, pointedly inquired: "Are you sure that Averell Harriman is really the most independent, liberal gubernatorial candidate?" Then on the front page of the final edition, on the night before election, Post readers got a furious Schiff assault on Harriman: "Governor Harriman's recent snide insinuation that Nelson Rockefeller is pro-Arab and anti-Israel should not be condoned by any fair-minded person . . . If you agree with me, do not vote for Averell Harriman tomorrow."

Losing Her Heart. Three days after election, both Publisher Schiff and Editor James A. Wechsler took to print to explain what had happened. Said Dolly to "Dear Reader": "Time was running out. No one else had dared or cared to refute Harriman's unfair insinuation that Rockefeller was hostile to Israel." Said Editor Wechsler, in a signed editorial: "Mrs. Schiff and I spent many hours over a period of two months discussing the decision . . . Much as I differ with her final conclusion, I know it was not an easy one for her." At the point where some of his fans hoped that he would announce that he had walked out, Wechsler added that he was still at his desk.

These public apologias told only part of the story. Publisher Schiff, who subscribes to the philosophy that politics is an affair of the heart, has lost her heart before in the pages of her paper. In 1948, when Editor Theodore O. Thackrey, who was also Publisher Schiff's husband (her third of four), endorsed Henry Agard Wallace for President, his wife quarreled in print for twelve weeks over his choice, wound up by endorsing Republican Thomas Dewey, firing Ted Thackrey in his capacity as editor and divorcing him in his capacity as spouse.

"Stop the Presses!" As for 1958, Publisher Schiff probably would have insisted on a first-instance endorsement of Rockefeller ("I love Nelson"), if he had not had breakfast in Manhattan with Vice President Nixon ("Nixonism has replaced McCarthyism as the greatest threat to the prestige of our nation today"). Then Governor Harriman gave her a reason--by implying, in a radio broadcast, that Rockefeller was pro-Arab and anti-Israel. En route to Baltimore to visit the ailing mother of her fourth husband, Philanthropist Rudolf G. Sonneborn (and co-chairman of Democrats for Rockefeller), Dolly brooded and made up her mind.

Back at the Post office, Publisher Schiff scribbled the front-page Harriman indictment on a piece of copy paper, handed it to her secretary, who delivered it to Editor Wechsler on the second floor, with orders: "Mrs. Schiff wants you to kill everything on Page One and put this in." Later, Mrs. Schiff recalled: "Jimmy called me. I had never heard anyone outside of the movies say 'Stop the presses!' but that's what I said. I don't remember too much of our conversation now. I was in a highly emotional state. Jimmy didn't argue with me. He believes in freedom of speech for publishers."

At week's end, when the book closed on one of journalism's zanier chapters, the epilogue was written by one of Dolly's close friends: "Now she has divorced three husbands and one candidate."

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