Change at LIFE

At one of his first staff meetings after becoming managing editor of LIFE in 1961, George Hunt cited one of his goals: "We must revive the spirit of Lincoln Steffens." LIFE soon exposed corruption in the New York State Liquor Authority, and its articles led to the conviction for bribery of L. Judson Morhouse, one of the state's leading politicians. Since then, LIFE has published dozens of investigative stories, including revelations about the machinations of the Mafia, the racket of doctors who take advantage of fat women with reducing programs, and the unsavory acquaintances of former Missouri Senator Edward V. Long. In recent weeks, it has stirred a national storm with stories that pointed out ethical flaws in the conduct of Ohio Governor James Rhodes and Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas (see THE NATION).

At this point, George Hunt decided to exercise a proviso that he had made when he became managing editor: he would keep the job only until he was 50 years old. Last week, at 50, Hunt stepped down as LIFE'S managing editor. His place will be taken by Ralph Graves, 44, a 20-year veteran at LIFE who has spent the past two years as senior staff editor of all Time Inc. publications and assistant to Editor in Chief Hedley Donovan. Graves will share responsibility for running the magazine with LIFE'S editor, Thomas Griffith.

Many Voices. A veteran of Marine Corps action in the Pacific, where he won the Silver Star and Navy Cross, Hunt progressed from a FORTUNE magazine writer to LIFE bureau chief in Chicago and Washington. As LIFE'S managing editor, he added guest columnists and more by-lined critical articles, and achieved a more effective blending of words and pictures. Hunt not only made LIFE more personal but added, as he puts it, "many voices, many points of view, as well as its own." His philosophy was that LIFE should "report the news as magnificently as possible," realizing that "people like to escape in beauty, and art, and space." Readers responded so well that LIFE'S circulation grew from 6,888,000 to 8,500,000 (with an assist from subscribers who had switched from the Saturday Evening Post). LIFE, however, shares the dilemma of all mass-circulation magazines these days: production costs are so immense that advertising revenues--which for LIFE last year totaled $153,900,000 --produce only slim profit margins.

Hunt will take a year's leave before returning to a new executive post at Time Inc. Following a life-long love of the sea, he has bought a 57-ft. ketch that he plans to sail on a year-long cruise with his wife Anita and a few friends, going to Bermuda, the Azores, through the Mediterranean, along the Italian coast and to the Greek Isles.

LIFE'S new managing editor, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard ('48), joined LIFE because a friend advised him that a few years on such a magazine would be invaluable experience for a novelist. He has since published two novels (Thanks for the Ride and The Lost Eagles), but they have not distracted him from his career as an editor. In his assignment outside the pressures of weekly deadlines, Graves has had time to develop some firm ideas for improving LIFE. Never a chatty journalist, though, he contends that an editor must be judged not on what he says he will do but on what he does.

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