The Press: Assassins at the Bar

When New York Mirror Editor Jack Lait and his Nightclub Columnist Lee Mortimer brought out their untidy, slapdash book, U.S.A. Confidential, they quickly became targets of half a dozen libel suits (TIME, May 19, 1952), based on the character assassination that helped make the book a bestseller. Biggest and most important was brought by Dallas' Neiman-Marcus store, which sued for $7,400,000 because Lait and Mortimer had written: "Some Neiman models are call girls . . . and the Dallas fairy colony is composed of many Neiman dress and millinery designers." Crown Publishers Inc., which published U.S.A. Confidential, promptly decided that it could not defend the Lait-Mortimer brand of journalism, settled out of court with the store by publicly apologizing. But Authors Lait and Mortimer refused to settle, boldly announced: "We propose to establish the truth of all our assertions [in the book]." Last week Columnist Mortimer and the estate of Editor Lait, who died last year, gave up the pretense of defending the book. To settle the libel suit, Lait's estate and Mortimer paid a "substantial" sum of money to the store, footed the bill for newspaper ads abjectly admitting: "In retrospect and on more careful examination, these statements, we are now convinced, are untrue and were made without proof or credible evidence."

Manhattan's Communist Daily Worker was also forced to eat an expensive diet of crow last week. Four years ago, in its attempt to take over the defense of Negro Rapist Willie McGee and use the case for party propaganda (TIME, May 14, 1951) the Worker printed an "exclusive." It charged that Mrs. Willette Hawkins, the Laurel (Miss.) housewife who accused McGee, had actually "forced an illicit affair on him for more than four years and suddenly shouted rape after the whole town discovered the story." Mrs. Hawkins sued the Worker for $1,000,000. Last week she settled for $5,000. to be paid in ten-week installments, and two apologies to be printed in the Worker.