CHANGING OF THE GUARD IN THE MIDDLE EAST .
Halford L. Hoskins 65
THE SOVIET UNION IN THE MIDDLE EAST .
Benjamin Shwadran 72
ISRAEL: THE UNRELENTING BATTLE. Dwight /. Simpson 78
POLITICAL TRENDS IN IRAQ AND KUWAIT. .Majid Khadduri 84
THE NEW EGYPT AFTER 1952 .. ..Christina Phelps Harris 90
TRADITION AND REFORM IN SAUDI ARABIA . ...
George Lenezowski 98
NEW REGIME IN TURKEY . Ruth C. Lawson 105
MAPS • 7 'he Middle Last: A Broad View ... 67
BOOK REVIEWS ... Ill
CURRENT DOCUMENTS • United Nations Censure of Israel _ 113
Seen I ary Rusk on the Middle East . . 113
THE MONTH IN REVIEW . 117
HALF A CENTURY LATER—FEBRUARY 1967
The cover lists the contents, but now blocks of eye-catching color enliven the page.
on “America and a New World State” in April 1915; and from 1918 onward there was much about the League of Nations, including pronouncements by statesmen at home and abroad.
By 1918 Current History had reached a circulation of 76,000. In November of that year it initiated the frontispiece picture gallery, soon to occupy sixteen pages, an imitation of a World’s Work feature. In 1920 it also followed the example of that magazine in raising its price to thirty-five cents a copy. The circulation dropped off by one-half in the next two years, and the twenty-five-cent price was restored in 1923; thereupon circulation went up to 80,000, the highest point of its history.
But it was not the price change alone that brought increased popularity to Current History in 1924; it was a new editorial plan, and an advertising campaign to support the new plan. For the first few years after the war, the magazine had clearly been groping and hoping. It had been composed chiefly of summaries of news, divided by countries, with important documents and some special articles, nearly all foreign. By-lines were rarer, but Gustavus Myers, Frank Parker Stockbridge, Stephen Bonsai, Charles H. Grasty, and Admiral William S. Sims were frequent contributors. Illustration by roto had been abandoned, and halftones grew fewer and fewer. Then by 1922 there was a noticeable tendency to draw on university professors as contributors—Eliot of Harvard, Hadley of Yale, and many others. This crystallized in November 1923 into a system of reviewing world events, of which Ochs-Oakes was very proud and which seemed to give the magazine a new lease on life.
By this system twelve professors of history from colleges and universities in the United States and Canada were assigned each to a country or a region, and together they furnished a “Monthly Survey of World Events.” These “associates in Current History” were headed by Albert Bushnell Hart, of Harvard. There were many changes in succeeding months and years both in the personnel of this board of editors and in the way their reports were handled. In February 1926, the “Historians’ Chronicle of the World” became Part II of the magazine, and James Thayer Gerould became the leading commentator on general international affairs. Hart did the United States section until 1931, when E. Francis Brown took over. In the
thirties the formal pattern was considerably broken up, and special features became more prominent; but many of these were contributed by professors of history—Charles A. Beard on the New Deal, Allan Nevins on European affairs, Henry Steele Commager on American issues, and so on. The magazine still carried “A Month’s World History” by countries when it was sold by the Times in 1936.
In these years there were sporadic attempts to conduct a science department, notably one by Watson Davis in 1924 through 1932. Waldemar Kaempffert was a frequent contributor. Too many things in the magazine were “sporadic,” and there was an impression of experimentation by inexperienced staff.
The prohibition issue occupied much space. The magazine was sympathetic with the “noble experiment.” In national presidential campaigns, issues were presented objectively, platforms were printed in full, and there were accounts of the conventions of all parties. In June 1928 there appeared an unusual symposium, with nine different writers presenting various angles of the questions at issue in the campaign of that year.
By the mid-thirties journalists tended to crowd the professors in the pages of the magazine; representative contributors were William Hard, Bruce Bliven, Ernest K. Lindley, Ralph Thompson, and Raymond B. Clapper. Some book reviews in the fields of history and biography were carried in the advertising section.
The early thirties were challenging years for the reviews, but they were difficult times financially for all of them. The Review of Reviews absorbed World’s Work in 1932; the Literary Digest was merged in 1937 with the remains of the other two (it had taken over Current Opinion in 1924), but the resulting publication lasted only a short time. 4 Current History’s circulation declined slowly but steadily through these years, reaching 61,000 in the panic year of 1930. There was some advertising, but usually not more than ten or a dozen pages of it. Cheaper paper was adopted in 1931, and all illustrations abandoned ex-
4 See F. L. Mott, A History of American Magazines, v. 4 (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), pp. 578-9, 663-64; and Theodore Peterson, Magazines in the Twentieth Century, revised ed. (Urbana, Ill., 1964), pp. 152-54.
cept the cartoons and some maps. Editor Ochs-Oakes died in 1931, and Spencer Brodney, who had been a member of Current History’s staff for several years, 5 became its editor. But five years more of the depression, with circulation down to 42,000, persuaded the Times to sell the magazine.
The purchaser was the nearly blind journalist, Merle Elliott Tracy, who had been a columnist for the Scripps-Howard papers, and who now became editor and publisher of Current History for three years. Better paper, better illustration, and eventually a larger page characterized the new magazine. A “Log of Major Currents,” composed of short commentary, occupied some thirty of the magazine’s 132 pages. “They Say” was a twelve-page department of quotations and clippings. “The World in Books” was conducted by Norman B. Cousins, literary editor from February 1937, while Vernon F. Calverton had charge of “The Cultural Barometer.” There were other departments, and the magazine was more attractive than ever before.
Tracy wrote an editorial page, decidedly anti-New Deal. Gradually such well-known names as those of Bernard M. Baruch and Rexford Guy Tugwell came into the tables of contents. Nearly half the magazine was devoted to foreign affairs, and Winston Churchill and Leon Blum were added to the list of contributors. The professors were not neglected; and Charles A. Hodges (politics, New York University), David S. Muzzey (history, Columbia), and Harry A. Overstreet (psychology, City College) were on a new editorial board organized in 1937.
But the new Current History did not prosper; indeed, it continued its slow decline in circulation. Early in 1939 it was sold to interests represented by Joseph Hilton Smyth—who was later to be convicted of spreading Japanese propaganda in America for a price, through the medium of another magazine. Smyth’s control lasted only nine months. The editorial policy was isolationist, Senator Robert A. Taft’s “Let’s Mind Our Own Business” (June 1939) setting the tone. The magazine tended to become more and more eclectic; characteristic was the “Town Meeting” department edited by George V. Denny
5 New York Times, July 24, 1941, p. 13, col. 1.
CURRENT HISTORY 57
of radio fame, giving cross sections of public opinion on various issues.
In December 1939 appeared the first number of the magazine under a new ownership and management headed by E. Trevor Hill, with John T. Hackett as joint editor. That issue contained a symposium on “The War in Europe: 1939,” by Hugh S. Johnson, Henry C. Wolfe, Ernest Dimnet, Alfred Duff Cooper, and others. Next month the magazine declared its neutrality and its strong opposition to United States participation in the war. Vincent Sheean, Lindsay Rogers, and James Truslow Adams became frequent contributors.
The Hill organization purchased the Forum and Century 6 and combined it with Current History in July 1940 under the name, Current History and Forum. Eleanor Van Alen succeeded Cousins as literary editor, and Robert Strausz-Hupe and Roger W. Straus, Jr., became associate editors. The monthly debate on a current issue, characteristic of the Forum, was retained for a few months and then dropped; “They Say” and the chronology were retained, and new departments were added. On the whole, the magazine was livelier than before, but there was no adequate coverage of World War II comparable to that given World War I by the original Current History. The magazine under Hill abandoned its isolationism and in its last number (June 1941) urged that the United States should take up the burdens of world leadership.
This was the last number of the original series. The merger had brought the circulation up, but the gain had not been held. So Current History was sold in the summer of 1941 to Spencer Brodney, who had been its editor when it had passed out of the hands of the New York Times, and who had shortly thereafter founded a magazine of his own called Events. He claimed that Events had all along been the true successor of the New York Times Current History; 7 and now he made a clean break with the management that had been operating Current History and Forum and with the number for September 1941 started a new Current History with new numbering, format, staff, and policy. For a year and a half he carried the subtitle, “Incorporating
6 Mott, American Magazines, v. 4, p. 522.
7 Current History, N.S., v. 1, Sept. 1941, Back-cover page.
Events, Forum and Century,” but after that it was simply, “A Monthly Magazine of World Affairs.”
The new Current History page was in between the pocket size and the regular magazine size—a squarish five by seven and a half page carrying two columns. Six years later it was to enlarge this page to a small quarto, raising the price at the same time from twenty-five to thirty-five cents. It dispensed entirely with illustration. Brodney was editor until 1943, when he was succeeded by Daniel George Redmond, whose term of service lasted for twelve years. Carol L. Thompson, long-time associate editor, took over on Redmond’s death in 1955, and D. G. Redmond, Jr., became publisher.
The magazine with its new numbering, conducted first by Brodney and then by the Redmonds, was designed largely for students and libraries. A “Study Plan” and monthly tests were furnished for a while at reduced cost to students, and free copies to teachers. It raised its price in 1951 to fifty cents. Its content, largely concerned with foreign and international matters, was consistently nonpartisan, intelligent, and of a high analytical quality. Special numbers, common for several years, became the rule in the mid-fifties; the first six numbers in 1956, for example, dealt with “The Soviet Union Since Stalin,” “Report on India,” “Problems of American Foreign Policy,” and “Reports” on Germany, Africa, and the Middle East. These “Reports” later became “Area Studies,” which coordinated much valuable information on vital areas.
In the best tradition of the magazine, its contributing editors have been drawn from college and university faculties. Prominent in the pages of Current History for many years have been Frederick L. Schuman (politics, Williams), Sidney B. Fay (history, Harvard, Yale), Alzada Comstock (economics, Mt. Holyoke), Colston E. Warne (economics, Amherst), and others.
Though bibliographically a separate periodical from the Current History of 1914-1941, the later magazine is historically a sequel to it, and carries in each issue the statement: “Founded in 1914 by the New York Times.” *
* This historical sketch was written in the late 1950’s. The price of an issue rose in 1960 to eighty-five cents, in 1965 to ninety cents, and in 1967 is ninety- five cents and $8.50 a year. Circulation is slightly over 26,000.
EDITOR & PUBLISHER 1
J AMES B. SHALE, publisher of the News at McKeesport, Pennsylvania, was one of a group of newspaper owners who organized the Publishers’ Press Association at the time of the collapse of the old United Press in 1897. Shale became president and general manager of the new wire service, which at first served chiefly Pennsylvania and New York papers. But other eastern papers soon joined, and the agency expanded rapidly—perhaps too rapidly, for in 1904 Shale and his chief partner in the venture were willing to sell out to the Scripps-McRae Press Association for $150,000. A few years later Scripps merged the Publishers’ Press in his new United Press Associations. 2
In the midst of all this activity, Shale took time to found, in New York, a periodical that he named The Editor and Publisher: A Journal for Newspaper Makers. It might seem that
1 Titles: (1) The Editor and Publisher, 1901—15; (2) Editor & Publisher, 1915-current. (“The” was dropped in 1918.) Subtitles: (1) and Journalist (with variants), 1907-16; (2) The Fourth Estate, 1927-current; (3) The Oldest Publishers’ and Advertisers’ Newspaper in America, 1916-current.
First issue: June 29, 1901. Current.
Periodicity: Weekly. Annual volumes, 1-14 (usually July-June; sometimes mid-June to mid-June), 1901-15; 15-46 omitted, vol. numbers changed March 15, 1915, to take over founding date of merged Journalist (1884): thus vol. for June 1914—June 1915 began as 14, ended as 47; 48-50, June 1915—June 1918; 51, July 1918—May 1919; 52-54 (May-June), 1919-22; 55-67, (June-May), 1922-35; 68, May-Dec. 1935; 69-current (Jan.-Dee.), 1936-current.
Publishers: James B. Shale, 1901-12; Editor & Publisher, Inc. (James Wright Brown, pres., 1912-47, 1948-53; James Wright Brown, Jr., 1947-48; Robert Utting Brown, 1953-58, publisher, 1958-current), 1912-current. New York. Chairman of the Board, James Wright Brown, 1953-59.
Editors: James B. Shale, 1901-02, 1909-12; Frank LeRoy Blanchard (managing ed.) 1901-02, 1908, 1911-16; Philip R. Dillon (man. ed.) 1908-09; J. W Brown, 1916-24, 1936-38, 1943-44; Marlen Edwin Pew, 1924-36; Arthur T. Robb, 1938-43 ; R. U. Brown, 1944-current.
Indexes: Semiannual, 1935-61.
References: Editor & Publisher, “Golden Jubilee Number,” v. 67, July 21, 1934, pp. 34-35, 308-9; 65th anniversary number, v. 82, April 23, 1949, pp. 25-28, 32B-32D, 76-102; “75th Anniversary Edition,” v. 92, June 27, 1959, sec. 2, pp. 107-18.
2 Victor Rosewater, History of Cooperative News-Gathering in the United States (New York, 1930), pp. 342-44.