Surrender in Paris

For six bleak years, the neophyte New York Times International edition tried to compete in Paris with the septuagenarian Paris Herald Tribune. Last year the competition became more unequal when the Herald Tribune combined with the Washington Post. Finally faced by accumulated losses of some $12 million, including $2,000,000 last year, the Times International folded last week and merged with the Trib-Post.

In its final months, under ex-Foreign News Editor Sydney Gruson, the Times had put up quite a fight. During its last year, circulation rose by 15% to 47,000; advertising linage jumped 20%, running ahead of the Trib by 2.7 million to 1.8 million lines. Trouble was, the Trib-Post, with a circulation of 60,000, was a better paper, with a much keener sense of what the overseas American wanted to read. The Times, despite all its effort to add fresh European shopping and travel features, remained essentially a thin version of the New York edition.

The new three-way merger will be called the International Herald Tribune. Interest in the new venture will amount to 37% for Jock Whitney's Trib, 33% for the Times and 30% for the Post. The Trib-Post's editor, Murray M. Weiss, and its publisher, Robert T. MacDonald, will be in charge; Gruson will work with them during the period of transition, then return to Manhattan. With an expected circulation of close to 100,000, the paper will be the largest American daily ever printed outside the U.S.--but it will be put to bed each night without the services of four of the old Trib newsmen, who quit last week when they learned that holdovers from the Times staff were being hired at better salaries.

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