Man Who Took Richmond

When scholarly Douglas Southall (Lee's Lieutenants) Freeman retired two years ago as editor of the Richmond News Leader (circ. 99,200), he put a bug in his boss's ear. Freeman advised Publisher David Tennant Bryan to keep an eye on James Jackson Kilpatrick Jr., Freeman's brash, up & coming lieutenant from Oklahoma, who "in five years got to know more people in Richmond than many natives know in 40 years." Last week 30-year-old "Kilpo" Kilpatrick* moved into Freeman's old job as editor, in charge of the paper's editorial page.

Kilpo went straight to the News Leader from the University of Missouri's School of Journalism. A bear for facts and a bloodhound for the right word, Kilpo was close to being a one-man staff during the war (asthma made him 4-F), covered the Capitol and the legislature, wrote a hunting & fishing column and a weekly news roundup for servicemen. When Freeman retired, Kilpo took over the editorial page in fact, if not in title.

He quickly livened it up with more art and his own flamboyant writing, which is hard-hitting, but lacks Freeman's old-school liberal outlook and measured judgment. Said one colleague: "With Kilpo, everything is black or white." Kilpatrick still does a lot of leg work, packs his editorials with facts & figures. Says he: "I object to sitting in the office, contemplating the navel and rewriting news stories."

* No kin to Yankee General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, who panicked Richmond by his bold raids of 1863.

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