Press: Shotgun Sequel

Second only to William Randolph Hearst for his personal scoop of King Edward’s determination to marry the Woman of the Year (TIME, Nov. 2), in the journalistic history of the great Simpson Story the name of Newbold Noyes ranked high for his intimate reports of his visit to Fort Belvedere ten days before the abdication (TIME, Dec. 28). Rare authenticity attached to this extraordinary series because Mr. Noyes, 45, is the dignified associate editor of the Washington Star, a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, his father is president of the impeccable Associated Press, Mrs. Simpson is his cousin by marriage, and over all the Noyes pieces appeared an explicit imprimatur from both the interested parties. U. S. editors were surprised by but had to admire the racy, tabloidal flavor which Publisher Noyes achieved in his articles, reaching a peak in the King’s jocular query to Mr. Noyes asking if he had brought a shotgun to “cajole” him into marrying “Cousin” Wallis.

Professionally shocking, therefore, was a statement issued in France last week by Mrs. Simpson which in effect branded the editor of the Washington Star as a gossipmonger and sob-writer of the lowest order. In Cannes, Mrs. Simpson announced to the world Press: “. . . Mrs. Simpson states that Mr. Noyes is not her cousin. . . . Neither the Duke of Windsor nor Mrs. Simpson ever gave Mr. Noyes any kind of interview. . . . Noyes was received at dinner by King Edward, but . . . the conversation on that occasion was solely of a general nature and took at no time the confidential turn indicated by Noyes in his articles. . . . Mrs. Simpson . . . authorized him only to publish a portrait in words of herself with the object of rectifying many fantastic reports concerning her person ally. Therefore Mrs. Simpson noted with amazement that the actual articles far exceeded in scope any possible portrait in words. . . . She has retained Maître Armand Grégoire, Paris attorney, to defend her interests.” Attorney Gregoire was reported considering suits for fat libel against such mass newsorgans as Paris-Soir and Corricre della Sera of Milan, which had car ried the Noyes articles after their U. S. publication. Mrs. Simpson had been discussing them with the Duke of Windsor by telephone to Enzesfeld and a wrong impression was abroad that Mrs. Simpson might be sharing in the financial returns of her relative’s exploit. It was all most painful to her and the Duke — and to Mr. Noyes in the U. S. it was excruciating.

Frantically, for 36 hours last week, Mr. Noyes tried to reach Mrs. Simpson by transatlantic telephone. She would not speak with him. Neither would her host and press buffer, Herman Rogers. This behavior so infuriated her cousin, Lelia Gordon Dickey Noyes, who married Newbold Noyes after divorcing Robert Russell Dickey Jr. (TIME, Aug. 6, 1934), that she urged him to let Wallis have it now with both barrels and reveal much not yet revealed. In time’s nick Mrs. Simpson be gan exchanging cables with Mr. Noyes who had taxed her by cable with “an act of incredible unfairness and ingratitude.

. . . You and he both asked me to write newspaper articles to counteract unfavorable publicity to which you had been subjected. . . . There is no word in the articles which is not accurate.” Mrs. Simpson cabled back, said Mr. Noyes: “No intention whatsoever my part damage your personal or professional reputation. . . . You constantly refer to ‘job you both asked me to do.” I have talked to other party, who assures me he had no idea you were even going to write an article but believed you were simply going to use your American press connections to correct picture of me personally in America. Neither of us dreamed you would bring his name into your story, capitalizing your presence for a few hours in his house as a guest. . . . Truly sorry this situation had to arise between you and me.” “I ask you in seriousness,” cabled back Publisher Noyes, “whether I brought his name into your story.” There matters rested, except that presses of McCall’s Magazine were this week whirling with a piece by Newbold Noyes for which Mrs. Simpson had composed, said Mr. Noyes, an authorization to be printed above this story substantially thus: “An old friend of many years standing has asked permission to paint a portrait of me in words. To him I said ‘yes.’ (signed’) Wallis Simpson.” From the Duke of Windsor last week came no direct repudiation to Publisher Noyes, who still stoutly maintained that Edward VIII had told him that he, the King, was going to act as his own press officer, had given Mr. Noyes his private telephone number, had repeatedly responded with information when Noyes rang this number during the crisis.

¶ In London, where the Duke of Windsor was taking a fresh dive in prestige, his youngest brother, the Duke of Kent, suddenly found himself the target of a press which, having tasted royal scandal, lusted for more. Kent had got into the news, while nis Duchess was abed with her second child, by going with his orchidaceous friend Mrs. Allen to have his bumps read by a phrenologist and posing with Mrs. Allen on the doorstep (TIME. Jan. n).

Taking this as its springboard, the London weekly News-Review cooked up a two-page rehearsal of Kent’s conduct over recent years, served it up hot on all British newsstands for sixpence.

U. S. editors, while realizing that the Duke of Kent might possibly create enough scandal to affect the Royal Family, were mostly content to play down Mrs.

Allen, as having none of the importance which turned Mrs. Simpson into a Constitutional Crisis. With the Duke & Duchess on its cover, News-Review headed its story “Kent and His Companion,” featuring two pictures of Mrs.

Allen, who was previously the Cuban Marquise de Casa Maury and before that the London modiste’s mannequin Paula Gellibrand. H. R. H. Marina, Duchess of Kent, was described by News-Review as having “drifted from the smart set and left her husband to go the smart socialite rounds for them both . . . with zest.” In London the Beaverbrook Daily Ex press (circulation 2,040,000) broke the Kent & Mrs. Allen story in Britain’s daily press, sharply editorialized: “One way to keep clear of such news is not to do the things that make such news.” Not so the august London Times (circulation 192,000) which put its immense prestige among ruling Britons behind an editorial declaring that some news ought to be with held from the public. “There is no Golden Rule for news,” summed up the Times, “though sometimes it is silence that is golden and not publication.”