BATTLE OF CAPITOL HILL

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP88-01314R000100190076-2
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 20, 2016
Document Release Date: 
July 26, 2006
Sequence Number: 
76
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
April 14, 1969
Content Type: 
NSPR
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PDF icon CIA-RDP88-01314R000100190076-2.pdf160.97 KB
Body: 
Approved For Release 2006VY 1 - 88X-' '88-01 14ROO0100190076-2 -Poynter (left)., Schroth and CQ front page: On cohiiiion course? CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY fa Q"m~. ' i D o Battle'of Capitol Hill MARCH 26, 1969 . former editor at Life magazine and Poyn- In its. quiet, no-nonsense, comprehen- ter's` Florida daily. "In the future our has become required reading for busy Poynter. "But I think we will become doing will be similar to what they're do- ing," lie concedes. Certainly some of the staff will be similar. Schroth has already hired ten former Quarterly employees, including Neal 11. Peirce, the CQ's politi- .cal editor. "Nelson Poynter did me a fa- Nor by firing me," Schroth says. The Uses of Capitalism In its brief, turbulent history, Ram- parts magazine has managed to keep its guard up for sensational stories. It pilb- licizcd like CIA's underwriting of the National Student Association and hustled Clio Guevara's diary away from compet- ing American publishers. But despite' these efforts, the five-year-old magazine i?an up a $2 million debt. A few months ago editorial director Warren Hincklc grabbed a plane to New York in a frantic attempt to raise funds; upon returning, he announced that lie was planning to start his own magazine, to be called] Barricades. But publisher Frederick Mitchell and editor Robert Scheer, as well as the majority of the staff, didn't give up. With a hefty donation of cash from such contributors as Stewart Mott (son of the largest shareholder of Gen- eral Motors), the magazine kept going while at the same time. declaring "volun- tare bankruptcy"-a provision of the Fed-, porations -stave off creditors temporarily, in order to get back on their feet. i clause of the U.S. law was just one of ists, scholars, businessmen and librarians. In firing Schroth, however, Poynter meats most of the bills that have reached Quarterly than- he counted on. The oust- the floor of Congress during the week, ed Schroth has announced the formation li 4.. ll and amendme,ts and of a new weekly called the National a b l t e i............ , , o highlights the debates. it reviews cons- journa mittec hearings and methodically lists formed Center for Political Research. don't feel the least corrupted for having roll-call votes. Supplementary. services Lawyers Alexander M. Lankier and An availed ourselves of its privileges." But range from a weekly calendar of events thony C. Stout and Now York stockbroker. the magazine will tighten up on its own to a biennial report by Richard Scammon F. Randall Smith have provided most of operations by returning to monthly pub- on U.S. voting patterns. "It's the most the backing-a reported $2 million-to. ]ication (it had experimented with twice- i'useful thing a political reporter can stick finance the journal and the related serv- monthly issues), drastically reducing col- in his suitcase," says The Washington ices of the center. The annual cost of, or spreads, relocating from its $1,400-a- Post's David Broder. "It's virtually indis- subscribing may range from $200 to month San Francisco Bay-view office to pensable in either House or Senate," $2,000 depending on who the subscriber more modest tluarters, and paring down says Dave Newhall, a Senate aide, is and how many supplementary services its staff from 35 to 20. The magazine still "4/ Executive editor Thomas Schroth has, he wants. The first issue will be in the faces' an uphill fight to reverse the trend over the fourteen years of his association mails sometime this summer. Schroth's of losses that ran as high as $30,000 a with the, Quarterly, become known' in staff-which is expected to number at month. Among the magazine's creditors: 1ashington as "Mr. CQ." Since his arrival least 50 journalists and researchers-has Dr. Benjamin. Spock ($50), Eldridge in the Quarterly's Washington office, the already begun working on a book which Cleaver (.$805) and Pacific Telephone publication has increased its revenues will describe the Federal government ? and Telegraph ($19,000). from about $150,000 to $1.8 million a in action. o Another -lively but ad-thin magazine,, / year (which stems almost entirely from Rivals: Schroth says that the journal New York, announced that it would try, services that cost from $132 a year for will cover the executive branch more.' to solve its financial difficulties ($1.5 mil= 1 1 t ) b forming a' libraries to $50 a week for newspapers with a circulation more than 600,000). The dispassion of CQ's pages appar- ently was not reflected in Schroth's rela- tions with CQ's owner, Nelson Poynter (who also owns The St. Petersburg Times). Poynter, (i5, fired the 48-year- old Schroth, explaining he wasn't satis- fied "with the degree- of progress and the quality of our service." Poynter says lie's taking complete charge now, plans to increase the size of the staff from 45 to 55 and has already hired a rcplace- y comprehensively than the Qual terry.11on In osses as ye And, he says, "we're going to take a hard Aencid Equities-a holding company to the magazine-which will begin sell-: look at Federal agencies and try to show l lion how these agencies react to each other ing public stock in a few months. Though' and to outside pressure groups. More- the magazine's circulation has risen at aver, the center will hold t seminars, plan the rate of some 1,000 subscribers a week research projects, and be equipped to rill in tl a total to about 140,000), conduct research for such clients as TV ? received half the advertis- networks and universities. ing needed to break even. Still, New But for all these innovative elements, York was in the mood for celebrating its Schroth's National Journal promises to be first anniversary-it bought breakfast STAT something of an alter ego to the Quar- the Four Seasons restaurant for some 500 terry. "About _50 per cent of what ware , -109tc ?, many ironies. in the magazine's short life. "This is one of those intricate mech- anisnms which American Capitalism has provided for its own renewal," declares STAT A proved For Release 2006/07/28: CIA-RD