Trouble at Collier's

When Collier's hired gravel-voiced Louis Ruppel as editor three years ago, it knew it was buying a whirlwind. His gusty formula to cure the ailing magazine: 1) "an expose a week," 2) a drastic staff shakeup. Last week, after three years of the Ruppel treatment, the whirlwind blew itself out. Up on Collier's bulletin board went a tight-lipped announcement: "The resignation of Louis Ruppel as editor of Collier's was announced today by Clarence E. Stouch, president of the Crowell-Collier Publishing Co." Surprised staffers got no explanation of the break, but it was plain that the magazine was something less than sorry to see Ruppel go.

Ruppel, 48, an ex-Hearstling who came up in the rough & rowdy Chicago press, chopped off so many heads after he got to Collier's that some staffers began to quit even before they spotted the gleam of his ax. Even such contributors as Quentin Reynolds, Collie Small and Frank Ger-vasi made for the door. Editor Ruppel, one ex-Collier's staffer explained, had never before dealt with magazine writers, accustomed to writing pretty much as they pleased, and he often treated them just as if "he hated writers." But in the upper reaches of Crowell-Collier, Ruppel's man-eating performance was regarded tolerantly at first, because his bosses thought it might work. They found out they were wrong.

Attack. During Ruppel's regime, the magazine's circulation went up slightly, but not the way it was expected to under the whirlwind treatment. Crowell-Collier's profits, which had been down, kept dropping steeply. Such scare tricks as Collier's "Preview of the War We Do Not Want" issue (TIME, Oct. 29 et seq.) gave circulation a temporary lift, but earned Collier's thousands of adverse critics around the world.

Advertising revenue also was down; it was well below 1948, the year before Ruppel came in. But recently Ruppel ran into trouble from a different source. Last February, with a splash of full-page newspaper ads, Collier's touted a big exclusive: the inside story of "Mr. Big," described as the boss of "New York's sprawling, brawling, racket-ridden waterfront." In two articles, Collier's Star Crime Reporter Lester Velie identified "Mr. Big" as William J. McCormack, trucking, concrete and stevedoring contractor.

Retreat. After the articles appeared, Millionaire McCormack and his lawyer demanded a letter of retraction from Crowell-Collier President Stouch. Stouch gave him a letter, and McCormack distributed it. Recently it was printed for the first time in an obscure Manhattan vegetable and fruit trade paper, Produce News.

Said Stouch's letter: "The sole purpose of Collier's in publishing the articles . . . [and] the advertisements . . . was to make comment on matters of vital interest and importance to our country. We never intended the term 'Mr. Big,' as applied to you, to have any connotation of evil or association therewith, or to reflect on your integrity, or to imply that you are allied with racketeers, gangsters and mobsters. We will not republish the articles or advertisements, nor will we give our assent to the republication thereof. We are confident that your and our interest in waterfront problems is mutual."

The letter astounded Editor Ruppel and Reporter Velie, who saw it for the first time in Produce News. Said Velie, who has left Collier's to freelance: "The waterfront pieces took three months of digging." Editor Ruppel followed a course that was mutually satisfactory. He resigned. Caught by surprise, Collier's named Edward Anthony, the magazine's publisher, as editor until it could find a replacement for Ruppel.

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