Life of a Lens Man

He got his start as a cameraman in 1923, when he was hired by International News Photos at $9 a week and bought his first Speed Graphic with snitched "train money." In 20 years Samuel Schulman has covered transatlantic flights, big murders (like the Lindbergh case), national political conventions, revolutions (in Cuba), war. Last week, in a 234-page book called Where's Sammy? (Random House; $2.50), he told the story of his life. (The book was really written by International News Service's Bob Considine, who also "edited" Captain Ted Lawson's recent Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.)

Brassy, cocky, seemingly born with a sixth sense, Sammy Schulman has had more than his share of news beats. He was the only "snapper" on the scene when Assassin Giuseppe Zangara shot at Franklin Roosevelt in Miami in 1933. Result: a memorable picture of fatally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak. Of all the U.S. photographers who tried, Sammy alone got into Rome's St. Peter's in 1939 for Pope Pius XII's coronation.

Last January he was the only photographer on hand at Franklin Roosevelt's first Casablanca press conference. He had known the President since 1924, had discovered that there is an "electrical communion between Roosevelt and a lens." At Casablanca he heard the President ask the question that gave the book its title.

Where's Sammy? has a phony ring to it at times. There are other photographers besides Schulman and they are not all completely pedestrian. And I.N.P. does not always, as the book implies, come out on top in the race for what the trade calls "pix." But Where's Sammy? is highly readable, nevertheless. Sammy Schulman, 37, has trotted his five-by-five frame over much of the globe, seen a lot of history. He hopes to see more--Allied soldiers "walking down the Fifth Avenue of Tokyo," for example. Maybe he will. Luck seems to like him.

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