King of the Epithet

Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty and Ohio Congressman John Ashbrook represent different parties, different generations and different regions, but they have two important things in common. Each is almost universally regarded as a certain loser in his party's New Hampshire presidential primary, and each has the panting support of William Loeb's Manchester Union Leader. Never a piker in his predictions, Publisher Loeb even says that he thinks Yorty will win the Democratic primary.

That result would astonish everyone, Yorty included, but the influence wielded by the highly conservative Loeb cannot be dismissed. Party leaders in Washington guess that his support will build both Yorty's and Ashbrook's showings to perhaps 15% each, far more than they could have achieved on their own. It is not just that the Union Leader (circ. 63,000) is New Hampshire's only statewide daily newspaper. Of at least equal importance is Loeb's special perception of the world and its reflection in the Union Leader's pages.

Foul Ball. Though the Democratic field is crowded, Yorty stands out clearly in the paper's coverage. His announcement of plans to visit the state rated a three-column headline on Page One, while Edmund Muskie's formal declaration of candidacy was reported on page 12. A note from Chiang Kai-shek to Yorty, acknowledging the mayor's birthday greetings to the generalissimo, got front-page play. Unfavored candidates get heavy coverage in unfavorable situations. When Muskie was noncommittal about Gay Liberation, the Union Leader was there to point out on Page One that he had not condemned it. When Mrs. George McGovern mistook a portrait of Daniel Webster for William McKinley, Loeb viewed the lapse with such alarm that he used it in one of his frontpage editorials to question Senator McGovern's qualifications.

Ever the epithet king, Loeb lumps "Moscow Muskie," McGovern and John Lindsay together as "leftwing kooks." Richard Nixon, whom Loeb supported in 1960 and 1968, has become a "foul ball" and "the great devaluator." The rupture with Nixon came over the impending China visit. Nixon, says Loeb, "has devalued our chances of victory against the Communists by cuddling up to the Chinese Reds and the killers in the Kremlin." He calls Henry Kissinger "a tool of the Communist conspiracy." A Loeb editorial warns that "another four years of Nixon could only be considered a calamity for the nation." Conservative Republican Ashbrook, by contrast, was hailed last week for "complete candor" that has "won him the respect of even his most ardent detractors."

When not swinging the sledge, Loeb and the Union Leader can be downright cute in their way. After the announcement of Nixon's Peking trip, Loeb invited readers to rename the President's plane. Suggestions included go Mao, Pay Later and DingALing Dickie's Rickety Red Rickshaw. Loeb finally selected Freedom's Futile Flight. But fun and games are not restricted to presidential politics. When Loeb's choice for Governor was defeated in 1970 the Union Leader ran the names of some 15,000 registered Manchester-area voters who had not turned out. The implication was that they were unpatriotic in refusing to exercise the franchise. On Loeb's order ("A moral judgment," he says), the Union Leader carried no account of last year's Ali-Frazier championship fight; he considers Ali an un-American draft dodger.

Though Loeb sees Red under many a bed, he is not always allied with the far-right fringe. He considers the John Birch Society's Robert Welch a "bloody nut," for example, and often offends fellow conservatives by supporting organized labor. Loeb pioneered in newspaper profit sharing at the Union Leader in 1949, and will leave the paper to the employees when he dies. "I don't believe in inherited wealth," he says, but admits that he leaned heavily on his family's resources to acquire his first paper, the St. Albans (Vt.) Messenger, in 1941. His father, who became a wealthy minerals executive, was serving President Theodore Roosevelt as private secretary when Loeb was born in Washington 66 years ago.

Roosevelt became not only Loeb's godfather but his political and personal exemplar as well. Loeb considers himself a "19th century liberal" and still shares T.R.'s advocacy of a well-armed America and a vigorous personal life. Bald and robustly stocky, he is soft-spoken off the printed page and dedicated to what he considers "oldfashioned absolutes": honor, patriotism, good manners. He loves tennis, riding, shooting, skiing and salmon fishing--interests he shares enthusiastically with his third wife Nackey, a talented painter, sculptress and horsewoman who is the granddaughter of the late newspaper tycoon E. W. Scripps.

Smear Tactics. Though Loeb has been the dominant force in New Hampshire journalism since he bought into the Union Leader in 1946, he does not even live in the state. Rather, he divides his time between a ranch near Reno and a stately neo-Tudor home at Prides Crossing, Mass., 60 miles south of Manchester. He seldom shows up at the Union Leader but phones the paper every day from wherever he happens to be, to "keep track of things" and often to dictate a front-page editorial straight off the cuff. He never writes them out in advance because he feels that "plain talk is more effective."

Liberals outside the state consider Loeb a laughable Neanderthal who invariably backs sure losers for office, but those in New Hampshire take him seriously and fear his front-page thrusts. They claim with some justification that his charges amount to smear tactics; indeed, many of his accusations later turn out to be overdrawn or undocumented. This does not bother Loeb in the least. "The tragedy of the newspaper business today is that it's too gray," he says, "not enough black and white, no emotional involvement. Sooner or later, people will stop reading them." That is hardly likely to happen in New Hampshire as long as William Loeb is around.

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