Magazines: Fix or Fiction?

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"All I do," said Saturday Evening Post Editor Clay Blair Jr. in a recent speech, "is make speeches, deal with libel lawyers and raise hell about the telephone bill." Last week Blair was doing even less. Told by Curtis Publishing Co. President Matthew J. Culligan to quit talking to reporters, he hardly had time to look at the phone bill either. He was worrying about lawyers in an Atlanta courtroom where the Post was defending itself against a $10 million libel suit filed by former University of Georgia Football Coach Wally Butts.

The trouble was touched off last spring when the Post published "The Story of a College Football Fix," by Frank Graham Jr., an article alleging that Butts had given information to Alabama Coach Paul ("Bear") Bryant to help highly favored Alabama whip a second-rate Georgia team 35-0 in its first game of the 1962 season. In Georgia, where college football commands violent loyalties, such charges were no less than an accusation of treason. Butts raced into court. Right behind him came Bear Bryant, who was already suing the Post for $500,000 because of an earlier article that said he taught brutal football. Bear now wanted $10 million more for having been accused of participating in a fix.

Not So Simple. When Butts's suit came to trial last week, the Post led off, since the defense has the burden of proving truth. First major witness was Atlanta Insurance Salesman George Burnett, who claimed to have been an accidental eavesdropper on a pregame phone call between Butts and Bryant. It was Burnett's notes on what he said he heard that were the basis of the Post exposé.

On the stand, Burnett stuck to his story. He had been trying to make an other call when he found himself listening to a conversation between the two coaches. He had heard Butts give Bryant "detailed information about the plays and formations Georgia would use." Georgia's present coach, Johnny Griffith, and his assistants testified next; they claimed that such information would almost surely have been helpful to any opposing coach.

But as testimony and cross-examination ground on, it became clear that the Post's case was not quite that simple. Writer Graham had already admitted that he had turned out the story without ever seeing Burnett's notes. Although the article accused Butts of telling Bryant that the Georgia quarterback tipped off pass plays by the way he placed his feet, Burnett said that he had never heard Butts mention that fact. Coach Griffith added that his quarterback was better than that, anyway.