Time Bomb?

For six heady days the Fair Dealing New York Post's energetic Editor James Wechsler, 37, was sitting on top of the world. Jubilantly, Wechsler pounded out an editorial describing his paper's beat on the Nixon fund as a "time bomb," jeered at the rest of the U.S. press for ignoring it or playing it down when it first broke. Wrote he: "The story might have been greeted with more immediate and general press enthusiasm if a Democratic nominee had been involved." But after Nixon gave his television speech (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS) it quickly became clear that the Post's beat had boomeranged; Wechsler's time bomb had blown up in his face.

The Post did not gracefully concede this. No Postman took it harder than Max Lerner, a onetime Williams College political science professor who writes like a leftwing Pegler when his theories are crossed. "I recall," wrote Lerner, "a little scene from the Cleveland meeting . . . After the Nixon broadcast and before Eisenhower came on to speak, we watched one of the most curious performances in recent campaign history. George Bender, the chairman . . . called for those who would support [Nixon] and there was an animal roar from the hysterical crowd ... It was like a 'stab-in-the-back' rally at the Berlin Sportpalast or the fine justice of the People's Court in one of those East European countries." Thus Max Lerner likened 15,000 Ohio Republicans to Nazis.

The meeting of Ike and Nixon at Wheeling was reported in mocking purple prose by the Post's Murray Kempton: "A star was born unto the Republican Party last night . . . Nixon stood up before chilled and adoring thousands ... an antiaircraft beacon's rays upon his brow for a halo . . . his voice soft, hushed and equipped with a catch of rare contrivance, with Pat's eyes shining up at him and soap of infinite purity bubbling over all ... Eisenhower was very glad to play the slow violin accompaniment [to] 'Richard Faces Life' . . ."

Editor Wechsler himself was a bit slow to face the facts of journalistic life. The Chicago Tribune broke the news of Governor Stevenson's fund on Sunday. But the Post did not print anything about it until two days later. Then, its only mention was in four paragraphs tucked into another story. Not until Thursday did the story achieve its own headline in the Post: STEVENSON IGNORES TEMPEST OVER FUNDS. --

Throughout Nixon's ordeal ten newsmen accompanied him, from the dark hours when it looked as if he might be fired to his triumph at Wheeling. As they flew on with him into Washington last week, Nixon sat down with them in the lounge of the chartered DC-6. He said he'd thought of "setting up a little organization to meet and reminisce over the situation." His press secretary had suggested they call it "the Order of the Hot Seat." Nixon vetoed that name, said "I'm calling it the Order of the Hound's Tooth." And so they did.

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