New Postman

Washington correspondents know smart, stocky James Arthur Wechsler as one of the ablest reporters in the capital. But his name was well down on the totem pole of the New York Post Home News (circ. 380,000); he was one of two "associates" to Washington Bureau Chief Charles Van Devander. Last week, at 33, Jimmy Wechsler slid all the way up the pole to the editorship.

After firing her estranged husband Ted Thackrey in April, Publisher Dorothy Schiff* decided that in the editor's chair the Post Home News needed a working newsman who was a liberal with a clear anti-Communist record. Crusading Jimmy Wechsler seemed to be just the man. A onetime Nation assistant editor, Wechsler was on the original staff of the late tabloid PM, later its national affairs editor and Washington chief. In 1946, in protest against the paper's editorial Redlining, he chucked his job and went over to the Post. A graduate of Columbia, an ex-G.I. and the father of two, Newsman Wechsler has written three books (including a biography of John L. Lewis). His credo for the Post: "It was said long ago that the function of a newspaper is to 'comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.' Too many newspapers have forgotten the words . . . We propose to remember 7 . ."

* Who resumed her maiden name recently (with the prefix Mrs.) "to avoid confusion" with Wa-laceite. Ted, now editor of the new Manhattan tabloid, Daily Compass.

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