The Press: Blowup at the Mercury

Ever since J. Russell Maguire, oil speculator, munitions maker and onetime broker, took over the fading American Mercury (circ. 66,017) in 1952 he has had staff trouble. Within six months Editor William Bradford Huie walked out rather than turn over editorial control to Owner Maguire. Last week most of the Mercury's top editors left in a body. Out went Editor John A. Clements, who is also promotion boss of the Hearst, magazines, followed by Editorial Writer J. B. Matthews, Military Pundit George Fielding Eliot, Author (Seeds of Treason) Ralph de Toledano and three others. Columnists Howard Rushmore and Eugene Lyons were let go. All that the editors would say on the record was that they disagreed with Maguire's policies. But the New York World-Telegram and Stm's Pulitzer-Prizewinning Red Expert Frederick Woltman, who knows most of them well, said: "The editors resigned feeling that attempts were being made to introduce anti-Semitic material into the Mercury."