Bargaining for a Baby

If any magazine can be considered the personal property of a single man, the Saturday Review is Norman Cousins' baby. It reflects his own grab-bag curiosity: a mix of books, music, travel, science, education and communications. Cousins became the Review's editor 31 years ago, and later its owner. Ten years ago he sold it to the McCall Corp. but kept total editorial control. Recently, however, Editor Cousins, 56, found himself caught in a game of conglomerate Ping Pong, agonizing over where the Review (circ. 650,000) would wind up and whether he could continue to run it in good conscience.

The Review's owner--Norton Simon Inc. (Hunt Foods, Canada Dry), which had taken over McCall's--was negotiating with Boise Cascade to sell both the profitable Review and the money-losing McCall trade-book operation to Boise's publishing subsidiary, Communications/ Research/Machines Inc. CRM puts out the successful Psychology Today and Intellectual Digest. Cousins claimed he had a verbal repurchase agreement with Simon himself. But nothing was on paper, and both the company and Simon denied that there was any agreement.

Display of Gizzard. Cousins' deep love for the Review was evident in his anguished rhetoric. The situation, he said, was "a test of whether a magazine is a property or a living thing. You're dealing with delicate membranes, with people. Can you sell a wife? How do you transfer affection?" Cousins even considered abandoning the Review and starting a new magazine to compete with it. But, he reflected, "you can't turn against your own lifestyle, your own history. It is hard to imagine myself in that kind of public confrontation."

In the end, everything turned out to his satisfaction. The conglomerate negotiations broke down, and CRM President John Veronis and Board Chairman Nicolas Charney quit their positions. With financial help from Louis Marx Jr., son of the toy magnate, and Dan W. Lufkin, a Wall Street broker, they bought the Norton Simon package as individuals for an estimated $5,000,000. That convinced Cousins he could get along with his new owners. "I rather like this display of gizzard," he said happily. "I can't turn away from anyone who believes in the Saturday Review as much as that."

For Veronis and Charney it was a wrench to leave CRM, which they started in 1967 and sold to Boise last year. But their separation may be only temporary. "It's only a matter of time," says a CRM executive, "before they'll be back making Boise an offer for CRM."

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