The Press: Fighter's Fighter

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In 1956, when a newly retired U.S. Navy commander was convicted by a civil court of manslaughter for shooting an intruder, the Navy struck his name from the retirement rolls, cut off his wife and children from their only source of income. The case might have ended there had not Washington's powerful Army, Navy, Air Force Journal (circ. 28,166) gone into action. So hotly did the weekly Journal argue the injustice of the Navy's action that Georgia's Carl Vinson, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, started an investigation of conflicting service policies by which hard-earned military retirement pay can be denied without appeal.

Last week, when the imprisoned officer was paroled in time for Christmas, the Navy sank its marlinespike even deeper by dunning him for $3,777. Explanation: Under "unknown circumstances," i.e., snarled by red tape, the Navy had continued to send the commander his retirement pay after it was officially cut off. The Journal again front-paged the story, raised a ruckus that may well prompt congressional action to give servicemen ironclad retirement benefits.

Stay of Execution. Few weeks pass in which the Journal (slogan: "Spokesman of the Services since 1863") does not flail away at brasshatted bungling. Best-informed and most influential military publication in the U.S., it is studied closely from Capitol Hill to the White House (where 34-year Subscriber Eisenhower's copy* comes every Friday through the mail), from far-flung foreign bases to Washington's wire-service bureaus, which cull frequent stories from the Journal and label them "authoritative." Because the Journal has high-echelon readership (56% of its subscribers rank above Army captain) and high standards of accuracy, the Pentagon snaps smartly to attention when it barks. Examples:

¶ In 1956, when the Army quietly lopped twelve days from the school year of soldiers' children in Europe (thereby risking their accreditation by U.S. schools), the Journal's headlines swiftly restored the Army's $500,000 budget cut.

¶ Sniffing out Charlie Wilson's plan to abolish the Army's Veterinary Corps in 1956, the Journal stayed the execution by pointing out that Congress alone has the legal authority for such action.

Management Audience. But the Journal's eight-man staff also stands diligent guard over top-level military policies, carries voluminous texts of significant military documents. Boasts Publisher Robert Ames: "We reach the top management audience of the military." The Journal's weak spot is its tendency to be a house organ for the military. This it does with out shame or doubt, meticulously listing in country-weekly style all military transfers (sometimes thousands an issue), runs a chatty society section devoted to service doings, plus a vital statistics column in which, as one staffer says, "an Army brasshat has to be mentioned to make the birth official."