For Better or Hearst

By John F. Stacks

In 1935, Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to a university president who had been accused by William Randolph Hearst's newspapers of harboring communists: "I sometimes think that Hearst has done more to harm Democracy and civilization in America than any three other contemporaries put together."

A bit strong perhaps, given the cast of public characters at the time, but it was not all that far from the truth. As David Nasaw's superb new biography, The Chief (Houghton Mifflin; 687 pages; $35), makes compellingly clear, Hearst was the most powerful, the most self-centered and the richest media baron in the world. He controlled newspapers that reached 20 million readers, a news wire service, magazines, newsreels and feature-film companies and radio stations. Each enterprise was tied to the others, creating "synergy" before anyone had heard the word. Hearst said he was serving the nation, but what he was really doing was serving himself.

His relationship with F.D.R. was typical. He first opposed the Democrat, then supported him (partly owing to F.D.R.'s elaborate and cynical courtship). But when the New Deal began to cut against big financial interests, Hearst accused Roosevelt of being a communist agent. Throughout his career, Hearst bent his media outlets' coverage to suit his political or financial ends.

This is at least the fourth biography of Hearst and is far and away the best. Given access to Hearst's correspondence with his editors and his family, Nasaw has used the raw material brilliantly to paint a richly textured picture of the man who for decades did so much to shape political debate.

Hearst's personal wealth was astounding. But what is more astonishing is the extent to which his financial self-indulgence came close to wrecking the huge enterprise Hearst had constructed. In the face of recurring fiscal disaster, he kept on spending, borrowing and spending more. When his creditors caught up with him, there were so many warehouses full of art to sell that they had to be parceled out slowly so as not to wreck the international market. Finally, great lots of the stuff were sold over the counter at department stores to cover the ruinous debt he had amassed.

Hearst began his lifetime of accumulation about the time Adolph Ochs bought the moribund New York Times. Ochs and his heirs produced something of enduring value; Hearst and his family and his cronies produced a host of second-rate newspapers and did much to poison the politics of their era.

Hearst was a lousy father to his five sons, as his father had been to him. He took care of his wife financially even though he lived out his life with actress Marion Davies. It wasn't until he was dead that managers were able to rebuild the wrecked corporation he tried to leave under the control of Davies.

Of Hearst, Winston Churchill wrote, "I got to like him--a grave simple child...playing with the most expensive toys." Others found little to like or admire about the man. But Nasaw tells his story with such nuance and understanding that the reader never fully loses sympathy, even when the Chief was paying Hitler and Mussolini to write for his papers, and Hearst and his columnists were smearing innocent people.

--By John F. Stacks