Winchell Gets an Autograph

Walter Winchell, lieutenant commander U.S. Naval Reserve, went to Washington last week to get a book autographed. Before he left he had stirred up more gossip in the trade, in Congress and in the Navy than there are coals in Newcastle.

All he wanted in Washington was to get Into Battle (which Winston Churchill had inscribed and given to him) autographed by Franklin Roosevelt before auctioning it off at a Navy Relief benefit. But he let out the news that he would quit Hearst's King Features when his juicy contract expires Nov. 15. Reason: to stop the sale of his column to Eleanor ("Cissie") Patterson, publisher of the Washington Times-Herald. Cissie is the sister of Captain Joe Patterson (New York Daily News) and cousin of Colonel Robert McCormick (Chicago Tribune), and works hard to keep up with the menfolks.

Last month the Times-Herald killed all but nine of 28 Winchell columns. He took an ad in the Washington News: "Attention Mr. and Mrs. Washington, D.C. A certain Washington newspaper, whose initials are the Washington TH, omits considerable material from the column I write for King Features Syndicate. The omissions are usually about certain so-called Americans, pro-Nazis and pro-Japs. . . ."

How Winchell will syndicate his column (now in 800 papers) if he drops King Features, he did not say. (He did threaten that, the day after his contract expired, his column would appear in the Washington Post.*)

But the feud between Winchell and Cissie Patterson is strong enough to account for a great deal. Winchell admitted that his opinion of Cissie is partly unprintable. According to a Washington story, she has said: "There isn't a night goes by that I don't get down on my knees and pray that they take the off shore duty and put him on a destroyer that will sink."

Of more concern to Winchell than Cissie Patterson's prayers were similar remarks made in Congress. House Naval Affairs Committeeman Melvin Maas declared that "Winchell should be assigned to duty at Samoa or permitted to resign." Naval Affairs Committee Chairman Carl Vinson asserted: "I can tell you right now that I have advised the Navy Department either to call him [Winchell] into active service or to disenroll him."

The Navy Department did not heed this advice. Winchell has several times volunteered for active duty. But his broadcasts are among the Navy's most effective recruiting stunts and his benefits bring in much money for Navy Relief. How the Administration felt about him last week was clear: before Winchell left Washington, he got his autograph.

*To the Post next August, for similar reasons, will also go the Washington Merry-Go-Round of Drew Pearson and Bob Allen, who recently took advantage of a clause in their contract to give Cissie Patterson six months' notice of cancellation.

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