"A Wonderful Way Out"

For months, the nation's champion newspaper hunter, Samuel I. Newhouse, 67, had stalked the enticing prey. Now it seemed all but in the bag. In Omaha, the World-Herald board of directors, their fears of absentee ownership apparently lulled by Newhouse assurances, accepted his bid of $40,065,780. All that intervened was a meeting of principal stockholders to ratify the board's decision. But last week, at the last moment. Outsider Newhouse lost his Omaha prize to a hometown boy.

The successful bidder, and the World-Herald's new proprietor, is Peter Kiewit (pronounced key-wit), 62, a spare, taciturn man who has spent all his working life in the construction business. Until just a few weeks ago, Kiewit's interest in the Omaha paper was simply that of a subscriber. But when he read an article about New Yorker Sam Newhouse's interest in Omaha, Kiewit decided to try to keep the outsider out. He was well-equipped for the job.

Not the Slightest Doubt. It was no problem for Kiewit to top the Newhouse offer. After taking over the small Omaha construction firm founded in 1884 by his father, Peter Kiewit built it into one of the biggest in the world. Peter Kiewit Sons Co. now contracts on a global scale, and more often than not its gross annual volume heads the international list of contractors. Among other things, Kiewit has built the Air Force's base in Thule, Greenland, a giant radio telescope in West Virginia, a Titan missile base in California, Minuteman bases in North and South Dakota, a $1.2 billion AEC gaseous diffusion uranium processing plant in Ohio.

When, on the very eve of the World-Herald stockholders meeting, Kiewit tossed in a bid of $40,448,400--less than $400,000 above Newhouse's--there was not the slightest doubt that the stockholders would accept it. Some 85% of the stock is held by relatives and heirs of the paper's late publisher, Henry J. Doorly, and all of them are Kiewit's personal friends.

The very alacrity with which Kiewit's bid was accepted--Newhouse was not even offered the customary chance to top it--strongly suggested that local opposition to the city slicker had never really dissolved. "It's a wonderful way out," exulted World-Herald Executive Editor Frederick Ware, after the stockholders' meeting. "I can't think of a happier ending."

Endurable Defeat. For Greenhorn Publisher Kiewit, it was also a wonderful way in to a new game, despite the high price of admission. The 77-year-old World-Herald is a prosperous if not an outstanding daily, and it is the only one in town. Self-styled as independent, it became Republican and conservative soon after its founder, Democratic Senator Gilbert Hitchcock, died in 1934. It is solidly established in a conservative Republican state. It gives Nebraskans what they want: a tidy-looking paper heavy on rural affairs and light on international affairs, concise and easily digested frontpage stories that almost never ask the reader to turn to an inside page. Its seven morning and five afternoon editions, with a combined circulation of 254,962 (270,189 on Sunday), returned a handsome profit last year of $1,700,000 after taxes. Assorted other properties owned by the controlling World Publishing Company, including Omaha television station KETV, produced an additional net profit of more than $300,000. The paper also has $8,000,000 cash on hand.

Missing out in Omaha was a keen disappointment to Publisher Newhouse. Having repeatedly demonstrated his ability to make losing papers pay, he now prefers the pleasure and challenge of making profitable papers pay more. But the defeat was perhaps endurable to a man who has other ways to spend his money,* and who in the course of collecting all or part of 19 dailies, has reached in vain for 25 more.

*Last week Newhouse announce that he has pledged $13 million to Syracuse University's Newhouse Communications Center, created 2 years ago with an initial Newhouse gift of $2,000,000.

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