Publishers: The Eagle & the Chickens

When George Romney made his first political trip to New Hampshire last July, the Manchester Union Leader greeted him with a frontpage editorial headlined: GEORGE ROMNEY CAN’T AND SHOULDN’T WIN. The editorial went on to quote an unnamed corporation president as saying, “Romney is one of the meanest men I ever had anything to do with.” That was just the beginning. One editorial after another flayed Romney for “letting down the boys in Viet Nam,” for acting like a “desperate demagogue,” for not being born in the U.S. Complained the paper: “It would be hard to think of a more irresponsible leader for this great nation than the Mexican-born George Romney.”

Romney is only the latest in a long line of moderate-to-liberal politicians who have been branded by the Union Leader as unfit for office. The man who does the branding and writes the editorials is William Loeb, 62, perhaps the nation’s most intemperate and opinionated publisher.

While most U.S. papers have moved closer to the political center, Loeb has stayed resolutely on the far right. Warring against the twin evils of taxation and timidity in foreign affairs, he has substituted his own eagle-chicken classification for the customary hawk-dove. By his definition, even Walt Rostow and Robert McNamara qualify for the “chicken” category. “The harbor of Haiphong,” he says repeatedly, “should be bombed off the map.”

A Habit of Losing. By the standards of metropolitan journalism, Loeb’s Union Leader (circ. 55,000) is not very big. Nevertheless, it is New Hampshire’s largest and only statewide daily. As such, it is read and feared by every politician courting the New Hampshire vote. The candidates supported by Loeb -the late Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater, Brigadier General Harrison Thyng—have a habit of losing. Richard Nixon doubtless has mixed feelings about Loeb’s support in the current presidential primary. But better to be liked than hated by Loeb. In the 1964 primary, he referred to Nelson Rockefeller as a “wife swapper.” Earlier, he called Leverett Saltonstall “that fatuous ass,” and Eisenhower “that stinking hypocrite.” So hot have been his attacks on the Kennedys that Bobby finally hit back: “If there’s anyone more reckless with the truth, I don’t know him.”

The son of the White House Secretary to President Theodore Roosevelt, Loeb lives a long way from his newspaper office, in a neo-Tudor mansion on a 90-acre estate in Prides Crossing, Mass. He is well liked by his employes, was one of the first U.S. publishers to establish a profit-sharing plan. Moreover, the Union Leader does a commendable job of reporting state politics and carries as much national and international news as most papers its size. But all too often news stories turn out to be only slightly disguised Loeb opinions. ASKS U.S. BELLY CRAWL bawled the banner headline over a story about Senator Mike Mansfield urging the U.S. to confess that the Pueblo was in North Korean waters if the admission would bring about the release of the crew. Not long ago, the Union Leader happily featured a Manchester gravestone dealer who had placed a sign in his showroom window: “Save every bomb for Russia.” No use wasting good bombs on North Viet Nam, this man-in-the-street told a reporter. “We must deal directly with our enemy.”

Mercy of the Teamsters. Loeb may be an eagle in New Hampshire journalism, but his wings were clipped when he tried to move outside the state.

Though he owns three small papers elsewhere in New England, he put his major effort into making a success of the Haverhill (Mass.) Journal. He started the paper in 1957, when the city’s only other daily, the Gazette, was crippled by a strike. The Gazette continued to publish, but Loeb lured away its advertisers by offering them payments for long-term contracts. In 1965, after the Gazette sued Loeb for trying to put it out of business, a court ordered him to pay the Gazette $1,100,000; shortly after, he shut down the Journal.

In dire need of cash, he was rescued by the Teamsters Union, which proffered him a $2,000,000 loan. Soon after, he flailed the Kennedys for “railroading” the Teamster chief. Under the headline, GOD BARRED BY HOFFA’S JAILERS, he recently castigated prison authorities for returning devotional material that some nuns had sent to Convict Hoffa. He explained his own devotion to Hoffa. “As is this newspaper,” he wrote, “the Teamsters are concerned with mercy, charity and helping the average citizen of the U.S. gain the highest possible living standards.”