On to Birmingham

For the biggest price ever paid for a newspaper--$18,642,000--Publisher S. I. (for Samuel Irving) Newhouse last week bought the Birmingham News, one of the South's leading dailies. The sum brought to $33 million the amount spent in the last five years alone for newspapers by the small (5 ft. 3 in.), publicity-shy New Yorker. Like his last two buys, the Portland Oregonian and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat (TIME, April 4), the purchase of the News put Newhouse into a new region of the U.S. It also put him right behind the Hearst and Scripps-Howard chains, with an empire of 13 newspapers (total circ. 3,576,320) worth an estimated $70 million. The News was sold by its five trustees, heirs of the late Publisher Victor Henry Hanson, who, over 36 years, built the News (daily circ. 180,215, Sunday circ. 219,804) into one of the most prosperous U.S. dailies. The deal was started more than a year ago by Newspaper Broker Allen Kander (whose commission was around $500,000) and signed one afternoon in a Birmingham hotel room. Though self-made Publisher Newhouse prides himself on using his own money to buy news papers, he admitted reluctantly that the whopping price had sent him to Manhattan's Chemical Corn Exchange Bank for a loan of "about $10 million."

Risky. With the News he also got its subsidiaries: the Huntsville. Ala. Times (circ. 18,988), radio stations WAPI, WAFM and WHBS, TV station WABT and a freight company. Last year the News and subsidiaries piled up $3,000,000 in profits before taxes. A big reason for the fat profit is the fact that the News holds a virtual monopoly in Birmingham. By 1950 it had grown so strong that it forced the Scripps-Howard Birmingham Post, now the Post-Herald, into a junior partnership. Though separately written, the Post-Herald is printed and distributed by the News.

Why did the paper's five trustees decide to sell? First, said Publisher Clarence Bloodworth Hanson, 47, nephew of the late publisher, because the tightly knit team of trustees had been weakened only the week before by the retirement of James E. ("Chap") Chappell, 70, as president and editor. "That made us think of when others might have to step out," explained Hanson. Moreover, he said, the offer came to $8,804.70 for each share of News stock--an immense temptation when weighed against "so ephemeral and risky a business as the newspaper business can be."

What really clinched the decision was Newhouse's offer to keep the paper's top executives at their posts. Newhouse gave Publisher Hanson and General Manager Harry B. Bradley, 60, generous contracts to stay put until they are 65. He even gave a contract to Hanson's son Victor, 25, currently serving in the Air Force, assuring him the chance to enter the business and work toward a top managerial job.

Relief. Newhouse's delegation of local control is his fixed policy in running the country's most unconventional chain. "The ideal newspaper chain," he says, "is one in which there is no chaining what-soever." He confines himself to major business decisions, e.g., how big an editorial budget ought to be. But he plans to exert no more influence over the News's Democratic editorial views than he does over those of his Republican papers, such as the Harrisburg (Pa.) News and Patriot, the Syracuse (N.Y.) Post-Standard. It is only by sheer coincidence that both Newhouse and the News are Democratic supporters who switched to Ike in 1952.

Porridge? Never!

In time for Sir Winston Churchill's 81st birthday, London's Daily Mail (circ. 2,127,227) began running "Life Begins at 80," a series that promised intimate glimpses of Sir Winston in retirement. The series, written by a U.S. newsman. George W. Herald, was syndicated by United Features and had already run in U.S. papers, including the New York World-Telegram and Sun. But after a first installment that promised more "tomorrow," the Daily Mail abruptly dropped the series.

Last week Britain got the explanation from the weekly Spectator: "[Herald's reporting is] an impudent piece of fabrication." Then the Spectator (to which Sir Winston's son Randolph Churchill is a frequent contributor) rattled off an equally intimate but authoritative list of errors:

"Here are some examples of Mr. Herald's inventions: 'His valet, John, who accompanies him on all his trips, will invariably call him over the phone at 7 a.m. in summertime and 8 in winter-time.' Sir Winston has no valet called John, and is never called over the telephone. 'Thereupon Churchill dons a scarlet dressing-gown . . .' Sir Winston, like all sensible men, never wears a dressing-gown in bed. He has not lived to 80 without discovering that a dressing-gown gets wrinkled up in bed. In fact, he wears a bed-jacket.

'' 'Sir Winston has a theory about breakfast . . . served by Edward, his personal cook, which consists of porridge.' Sir Winston has never had a personal cook named Edward or anything else, and never eats porridge at breakfast or any other time. 'After coffee Sir Winston lights one of his daily six to eight cigarettes. That's correct: cigarettes.' It is incorrect. Sir Winston has not smoked a cigarette for a quarter of a century.

" 'Since last May the man who has done more for the world's cigar trade than any other living human being has given up Havanas for good.' As everyone except Mr. Herald knows. Sir Winston still smokes ten or twelve cigars a day. 'While Sir Winston looks through the morning papers, John (sic) prepares his first bath for him . . . From the bathroom Churchill goes right back to bed.' In fact, when Sir Winston has had his bath, he always gets dressed."

Herald's version had set Daily Mail phones ringing with complaints from readers who knew better, reportedly including Sir Winston himself--or so Author Herald said he had it from the Daily Mail editor. In Paris, where Newsman Herald lives, he admitted that he had not seen or talked with Sir Winston in putting together his story. But he dismissed the whole ruckus with a simple explanation: "Churchill obviously does not like it to be known that he is growing old."

The Return of La Prensa

For more than four years, Senora Zelmira Anchorena de Gainza Paz, now 81, has phoned Buenos Aires' La Prensa almost every week and demanded of the switchboard operator: "When are you going to give La Prensa back to the owners?" Last week, the switchboard girl answered: "Soon, Senora." Next day, by decree of President Aramburu, La Prensa was taken from the custody of the government, which had expropriated it, and returned to Owner Dona Zelmira and the Paz family. The paper's seizure by Peron, said the decree, was "one of the most implacable persecutions" of the dictatorship. Hours later Dr. Alberto Gainza Paz, 56, the paper's longtime editor and publisher, ended his exile in Manhattan and flew to Buenos Aires for a triumphant homecoming.

Waiting to greet him at Ezeiza Airport with his mother were hundreds of loyal ex-staffers, old friends and notables, even left-wing political adversaries. They were there to greet the man who had become one of the symbols of Peron's persecution since he had been arrested in 1951, escaped, and fled abroad. The crowd broke into cheers and tears as Gainza Paz and his wife stepped off the plane from New York. "It is with indescribable emotion that I return to my liberated country," said Gainza Paz in a choked voice. As his well-wishers nearly knocked him down, a squad of police linked arms with some of the welcomers in a weaving, living wall to move him and his party to shelter. "My God!" exclaimed Gainza Paz happily at the height of the crush (which somehow cost him a lost wallet). "This is worse than when Peron was in charge!"

During Gainza Paz's exile, the once-great newspaper founded by his grandfather in 1869 had shrunk from 40 pages to eight, from a circulation of 380,000 to 250,000, from a proud independent paper to a sordid Peronista puff sheet. Since the paper's seizure, loyal staffers had turned to such odd jobs as driving trucks, selling wine, refrigerators and auto parts. Fifteen had spent six months to two years in Peron's jails on charges of plotting revolutions. Many second-and third-generation Prensa employees would meet daily on streetcorners or at cafeterias to kindle hope and recall past glories when the paper was a daily encyclopedia of world news rivaled only by the New York Times and the Times of London.

Back in his enormous white suburban home, where a stream of callers brought huge baskets of flowers, Gainza Paz planned to take back all loyal employees and to revamp the paper in its old image, insofar as tight newsprint restrictions would permit. At week's end, Gainza Paz awaited an inventory of the plant and delivery of formal title before he would even set foot inside the building. He also refused to read La Prensa. Said he: "I won't read La Prensa until we're publishing it again."

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