The Rover Boys Abroad

"This piece," wrote William Randolph Hearst Jr. in the chatty style of his "Editor's Report," "will be read by you while your intrepid correspondent is once again flying over the Atlantic . . . The last three weeks have been, I guess, about the busiest the Hearst Task Force has ever put in." The Taskmaster of journalism's most extraordinary team was homeward bound, proudly clutching fresh trophies from his continuing international big-name hunt.

Accredited, along with some 1,500 newsmen, to cover President Kennedy's recent European visit, the Hearst Task Force was soon blazing its usual exclusive sidetracks all over the map. In Paris the huntsmen--Editor-in-Chief Hearst, National Editor Frank Conniff and Columnist Bob Considine--aimed for President de Gaulle, but missed (he never grants such audiences, not even with a Hearst) and had to settle for Premier Michel Debre. What about France's future? they asked. "One must never construct the distant future with only the date of the present time," answered Debre vaguely. Before cabling this wisdom to the U.S., Debre's visitors promised to send him a copy of their story.

In Rome, the Hearst retinue claimed a record after spending 75 minutes with Italian Premier Fanfani ("the longest interview he has ever accorded"). In Bonn, West German Chancellor Adenauer made the sententious observation that "we could live side by side with Communism, if they would behave as does the West."

Missed Scoop. After Bonn, Bill Hearst was admittedly bushed. "Another week at this rate, taxiing to and from airports," he confessed to "Editor's Report" readers, "and we'll all be qualified for pilots' wings. Or padded cells." But he slogged stubbornly on to audiences with two dictators: Salazar of Portugal and Franco of Spain. The Task Force was impressed by both men. "Today Spain and Portugal have comparatively flourishing economies," wrote Hearst. "You can walk the clean streets safely at night. Peace and prosperity prevail. And both countries are solidly in the ranks of the West. If that is the result of dictatorship, I say make the most of it."

The latest safari added little more to international understanding than this curious assessment of Franco and Salazar, but the Hearst Task Force was only running to form. Born in 1955 on a Hearstian impulse--when Bill decided to visit the Kremlin but did not want to go alone--the team demonstrated from the start a built-in capacity for missing the point. Accompanied to Moscow by Conniff and Hearstling Joseph Kingsbury Smith (now publisher of Hearst's New York Journal-American), Bill Hearst suspiciously searched his rooms for hidden mikes, bucked the usual language difficulties (the waitress brought sheep's eyes when they ordered ice)--and managed to miss a scoop on the biggest story in town.

At the time, Moscow was buzzing with rumors that Premier Georgy Malenkov was on the way out. And although one Nikita Khrushchev, then party first secretary, officially denied the rumors, he pointedly urged his guests to talk to Defense Minister Nikolai Bulganin. Ignoring the hint, the Hearst crew featured Khrushchev's official denial--SOVIET SHUNS WAR, DENIES MALENKOV AND HE MAY SPLIT--which ran in Hearst papers just the day before Malenkov resigned, to be replaced by Khrushchev's hand-picked choice: Nikolai Bulganin.

Still, the Task Force's first assault on Russia won a Pulitzer Prize, and what had begun on impulse became a habit. "It beats hell out of sitting around the office," said Bill Hearst as he and his pals prowled the global beat, collecting heads of state as other hunters collect heads. In the six years since then, the list has grown: Churchill twice ("He and Pop were very good friends"), Macmillan, Nehru, Japan's Hirohito and China's Chiang Kaishek, Israel's Ben-Gurion and the United Arab Republic's Nasser ("Did Nasser and Ben-Gurion at the same time"). Khrushchev has been such a regular subject for interviews that the Soviet Premier now regards Hearst as "my capitalist-monopolist friend." Hearst is moved to reciprocate. "May the Good Lord and my esteemed father forgive me," he wrote in a prologue to Ask Me Anything, the book based on Task Force encounters with Khrushchev, "but we seem to get along."

Time of His Life. An amiable and gregarious man whose name still spells U.S. journalism in many benighted corners of the world, Bill Hearst has long yearned to fill his father's image as well as his father's shoes. The globe-trotting safaris give him the chance. Other members of the retinue may do most of the shooting, but the quarry is usually softened up first by Hearst's friendly and disarming approach: "I hear what you're saying," he once told Khrushchev with a grin, "but I don't believe you." As General of the Hearst Task Force, Bill Hearst is obviously having the time of his life.

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