The Press: New Pundit

As the New York Times's chief congressional correspondent, slim, well-tailored William S. (for Smith) White, 50, has long been regarded by fellow newsmen as the most astute chronicler of the U.S. Senate-and by strangers is often taken for one of its members. Along with his polished daily reporting, Bill White has found time to write two successful books: 1957 Citadel, an admirer's analysis of the Senate, and The Taft Story, which won him a 1955 Pulitzer Prize in Letters. Last week Reporter White quit the Times after 13 years to fill a rare opening in the ranks of Washington pundits. Taking over from Thomas L. Stokes, whose career has been indefinitely interrupted by serious illness (TIME, March 24), White will write a thrice-weekly political column starting next month. He will also turn out a monthly Washington column for Harper's Magazine.

Reporter White's column for United Feature Syndicate will combine, says he, "some commentary, considerable news analysis and, now and then, some straight reporting." His internationalist, Jeffersonian political philosophy puts him only somewhat to the right of Liberal Tom Stokes's views. Yet Texas-born Bill White, who labels himself an "independent," also feels an affinity for the Senate's dominant Southern conservatives, many of whom, e.g., House Speaker Sam Rayburn, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, he has known since he went to Washington in 1933 to cover Texas affairs for the Associated Press.

Starting out as a reporter on the Austin Statesman while he was still at the University of Texas, White joined the A.P. in 1926, had become its general night editor in Manhattan headquarters before he went off to cover the war in Europe. Says he: "A newspaperman's life is a good career for the man who's really disinterested, whose aim is to explain facts, whose temperament is detached." One of the first dailies to start Columnist White on his new career last week was the conservative Washington Star (circ. 254,992), which signed up for his column as soon as it was offered.