The Press: Dethroned Prophet

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Samuel Wainer, a shrewd, nimble ex-political reporter, is the man who added new razzle-dazzle to Brazilian journalism. Two years ago, Sammy was just a columnist for wealthy Press Lord Assis ("Chato") Chateaubriand (TIME, June 8). But when Sammy came out for ex-Dictator Getulio Vargas in the last presidential election, Chato wired him: "I am buying ice for your hot head." Vargas won, and nicknamed Wainer "The Prophet." Money poured in from pro-Vargas industrialists and from the Vargas-controlled Bank of Brazil (a reputed $18 million) to buy Wainer a plant and start a new, pro-Vargas paper, Ultima Hora.

Brazil had never seen anything like Ultima Hora (idiomatically: "Up to the Last Minute"). With bright-colored inks on Page One, lavish photographs, six-man reporting teams, cut-rate ads, lotteries and giveaways, Wainer promoted Ultima Hora into top circulation spots in Rio (85,000) and Sao Paulo (90,000). Ungrateful Sammy trained his guns on ex-Boss Chateaubriand's empire (28 newspapers, five magazines, two TV and 19 radio stations), denounced him as a "pirate" and "international rat," ridiculed him in front-page cartoons. Chateaubriand seethed, and bided his time.

Last week Chateaubriand's time came. Under the nationalistic constitution of Brazil, only native-born Brazilians can own, publish or edit newspapers. A telephone tip to another anti-Wainer editor, Tribuna da Imprensa's crusading Carlos Lacerda, had advised him to look into Wainer's nationality. Acting together, Lacerda and Chateaubriand assigned eleven reporters and five lawyers to sleuth out the facts, then blared them in Page One headlines and on radio and TV. The tipster was right: Wainer's mother had arrived from Bessarabia (now Soviet Russia) in 1915—three years after Sammy was born. Cornered, Wainer produced immigration records purporting to prove his parents' arrival in 1905. Editor Lacerda demanded the original passenger list proved that the Wainer names had been recently forged by a Vargas henchman.

Sensing a national scandal, President Vargas abandoned his protégé, ordered Wainer's radio station closed down got ready to shut Ultima Hora too. Characteristically, Sammy devoted the station's last hours to heart-rending appeals to Vargas, interspersed with plugs for Ultima Hora. Then Sammy gave in, sold his stock at half-price (for $15,000), and resigned as editor and publisher.