THE BATTLE OF NEW YORK

The National Guard had sealed off lower Manhattan when the great beast was first sighted, and helicopter gunships buzzed like giant killer bees over the East River. But the beast was undeterred. Lusting for some nameless trophy, he climbed down from the top of the New York Post building and lumbered up Second Avenue toward the deserted offices of New York magazine...

To many New Yorkers, that tale would have seemed only slightly more bizarre than the melodrama unfolding on their front pages and television screens last week. Rupert Murdoch —the furry-browed, softspoken, intensely competitive Australian owner of ten major...