The Press: Young Bill

An open secret grapevined through the vast reaches of the Hearst empire. From Los Angeles to Manhattan, in deeply carpeted offices and in the roaring, greasy basement pressrooms, Hearstlings heard the word and passed it along: the gaudy old American Weekly had a new and younger publisher; William Randolph Hearst Jr. had a new and bigger job.

Out "to take a long rest" and probably a permanent one, from the Sunday supplement's editorship, went slight, sharp Martin J. ("Mike") Porter. In, as the fourth editor in its 50 flamboyant years, went portly, white-haired Walter Howey, 63-year-old veteran troubleshooter— the real-life model of the heartless managing editor in Front Page. He had been publisher just four months (TIME, Aug. 13), but was glad to move over—and down a notch— to make room for Young Bill.

In the empire this shift was taken as final proof that old man Hearst's second son is the heir apparent. For there has been nothing casual, as old hands well knew, in the way their patriarchal, 82-year-old chief has plotted the moves in his boys' careers.

Accidents Barred. It is not by accident but by W. R.'s design that George, 41, the eldest and plumpest son, is in San Francisco in a supernumerary job: in charge of illustration for the West Coast papers. George just likes photography is the way Hearstlings say it. John Randolph (Jack), 35, handles promotion projects (ranging from essay contests to Youth for Christ) in New York, as assistant to general manager Jacob Gortatowsky. Captain Randolph Apperson (Randy), 30, prewar assistant publisher of the San Francisco Call-Biilletin, will probably get a western Hearstpaper when he leaves the A.A.F.

His twin, David Whitmire, is assistant publisher of the Los Angeles Herald & Express.

As the most capable of a not-too-capable quintet — none of whom has the old man's dazzle — Young Bill last week kept on as publisher of the New York Journal-American and thereby became the first son to hold two important jobs at once.

Mission to Tokyo. Recently Hearst Sr. intrusted Hearst Jr. with a long-distance errand. Flying to Tokyo, the filial emissary had discussions (purely preliminary) with General Douglas MacArthur.

Subject: the General's memoirs. Hearst-papers would like to buy them, give them the same whoopdedoo treatment they gave the Wainwright diary, bought for $155,000. The mission failed.

No one in the Hearst hierarchy has a very clear notion of what Young Bill thinks about—except that it seems to match his father's thinking pretty well. (But the Old Man, at Bill's age, was a hell-for-leather radical, campaigning for cheap money, public power and Democrats.)

Young Bill has played it safe & sane since his teens. In those younger days he was a lank kid with a toothy grin, a penchant for flying, no allergy to work. On school vacations he worked as a "fly boy" in the pressroom at his father's New York Mirror. By the time he was 23 he was president of the American, and nobody objected. He earned the fond regard of Manhattan cops and firemen by plugging to get them higher pay. Occasionally he went nightclubbing with Irving Berlin.