HEAD MEN IN THE HEARST EMPIRE

WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST JR.

Second, ablest and most energetic of the Hearst sons, tall (6 ft. 1 in.) and balding at 43, he looks remarkably like his father, but lacks old W.R.'s iron will and steel-trap mind. But of all the sons, Bill has worked hardest at earning his newspaper spurs. While attending a small military academy in San Rafael, Calif., he spent his vacations working as a "flyboy" in the New York Mirror pressroom, after two years at University of California left school to work as a police-station cub for the old New York American. At 23, he was boosted up to be president, and stayed on the job with the merged Journal-American.

He learned to fly his own plane, did his share of nightclubbing, in World War II went to Europe as a zealous if undistinguished correspondent. The Chief himself edited his copy, wired him to stop writing about bombing raids until he flew in one (Bill did). At war's end, pleased old W.R. made him publisher of the prized American Weekly on top of his Journal-American job, and Bill was clearly marked as the empire's crown prince. Twice divorced, he was married three years ago to pretty Austine ("Bootsie") Cassini, society gossipist for Washington's McCormick-owned Times-Herald (her column is now Hearst-syndicated) and ex-wife of the Journal-American's own Igor (Cholly Knickerbocker) Cassini. The Hearsts shuttle between Washington and Manhattan, have one child, two-year-old William Randolph III.

RICHARD EMMETT BERLIN

A top executive under W.R. for the past ten years. Massive, dressy Dick Berlin, 57, got his start as a shipping clerk after a high-school education in his native Omaha. Full of Irish charm and aggressiveness, he served as a World War I naval lieutenant, began his career in the Hearst organization, without knowing it, when he met Mrs. Hearst at a party given for World War I servicemen. Charmed with Lieut. Berlin, Mrs. Hearst got him a postwar job selling advertising for Hearst's Motor Boating magazine. He was such a star salesman that he rose to be general manager of all Hearst magazines in 1930, helped keep the whole empire from foundering in its Depression crisis, stepped into the presidency of the Hearst Corp. in 1941 and bossed the empire's reorganization. Long a bachelor, he married Bronxville (N.Y.) Debutante Muriel ("Honey") Johnson in 1939, now has four children; Bridgid, 12; Richie, 11; Christina, 4; and Richard Emmett Jr., 4 mos. He is active in Roman Catholic lay circles (a Knight of Malta), an admirer and friend of Manhattan's Francis Cardinal Spellman. In the empire, subordinates both respect and fear him. He bombards underlings with memos signed with his unmistakable trademark, a big "D." Nervous in temperament, he is an able executive, a master of office politics and the laws of power. Dick Berlin, prime minister of the old regime, has now entrenched himself as the prime minister of the new.

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