"This was the same magazine whose dramatic overseas
growth came as a virtual adjunct of the U.S. intelligence
establishment, for decades respectfully toed the Republican
line, supported Nixon until the end and enthusiastically
backed the Vietnam War..."
___________________________
>Glory and Fall of Reader's Digest
>( Newsday )
>
>Glory and Fall of Reader's Digest
>
>By Dan Cryer. STAFF WRITER
>
>AMERICAN DREAMERS: The Wallaces and Reader's Digest, An Insider's
>Story, by Peter Canning. Simon & Schuster, 379 pp., $27.50.
>
>`AN INSTITUTION," Emerson wrote, "is the lengthened shadow of one man."
>Had he lived into the 20th Century, the Sage of Concord might well have
>had The Reader's Digest in mind. For founder DeWitt Wallace embodied its
>very soul - practical, down-to-earth, upbeat, sincere, mainstream
>conservative and committed to doing good.
> Wallace fashioned the Digest into an American original, a mighty
>instrument for global education and uplift. Meanwhile, his wife, Lila
>Acheson Wallace, not only stood by her man but periodically stepped
>inside the organization to wield a stiletto against her enemies.
> Like Henry Luce, another of the era's great magazine pioneers, the
>Wallaces were Presbyterians who believed in the righteousness of their
>cause. As the magazine they founded in 1922 soared to unprecedented
>heights of circulation (30 million in 15 languages at its peak), they
>made good by doing good.
> To the Wallaces, the Digest was never a mere profit machine. Service
>was its high calling. But as they grew old and died in the 1980s,
>according to "American Dreamers," by Peter Canning, a former Digest
>managing editor, their dream was sabotaged and destroyed. Their magazine
>was cheapened, their formerly pampered employees fired, and their $6
>billion empire "overrun by salesmen and profiteers." The orchestrator of
>this outrage was Laurance Rockefeller, a wolf wearing sheep's clothing,
>who had been brought in by the Wallaces to protect their legacy.
> For the most part, "American Dreamers" tells this story with great
>verve. The anecdotes are amusing, touching and revealing. The book
>shines at chronicling the young Wallaces and the magazine in its dynamic
>phases, during its founding and its '80s transformation. While the
>content of the Digest's journalism is largely ignored, the executive
>infighting of the '80s receives an insider's concentrated, and furious,
>attention.
> The Wallaces were as interesting as young adults as they later
>became frozen into constricted public roles. The son of a professor of
>Greek at Macalester College, a then-struggling Presbyterian institution
>in St. Paul, Minn., DeWitt was intelligent, industrious and a bit
>mischievous. His first foray into digesting came in the form of a
>pamphlet sold to farmers, "Getting the Most Out of Farming," a guide to
>U.S. Agriculture Department publications. Lila's father was a
>Presbyterian minister in the state of Washington. Into her early 30s,
>she was impressive in various teaching and social work posts.
> Because of DeWitt's wounds in World War I, the couple could not have
>children. The Digest was their baby. To it, DeWitt applied an uncanny
>common touch and a formula for getting "to the nub of things" that
>quickly tapped into a vast audience. Lila's role was continually to
>reassure this shy college dropout that he was on the right track. The
>rewards were a vast mansion, High Winds, built on a hill in Mount Kisco,
>and a stately headquarters in Pleasantville modeled on Colonial
>Williamsburg.
> Not until 1930 did the magazine commission an original article.
>Condensed books came in the '50s. DeWitt resisted running advertising
>until the mid-'50s; when he finally gave in, the magazine could command
>the highest page rate in the land, $31,000.
> Yet, to understand DeWitt Wallace, we must consider this astonishing
>memo admonishing his executives in 1970: "The only purpose of this
>clock-radio promotion is to make money. But should the desire to make
>money ever come first in our calculations? I don't think so." Such
>unabashed idealism would invite snickers in today's boardrooms.
> After Wallace's death, Canning charges, the cart was clearly behind
>the horse: "The magazine's real value now lay in its ability to produce
>names for the [mailing] list." Subscribers were not considered people
>worthy of uplift but captive consumers, a guaranteed market for
>condensed books, CDs and other Reader's Digest products.
> Canning also wrings his hands over the related decline in the
>magazine's content. The '80s Digest had the feel of a Reagan house
>organ. It was afraid to publish articles critical of the FBI and CIA.
>Yet he exaggerates the extent of change. This was the same magazine
>whose dramatic overseas growth came as a virtual adjunct of the U.S.
>intelligence establishment, for decades respectfully toed the Republican
>line, supported Nixon until the end and enthusiastically backed the
>Vietnam War.
> Nor does the author attempt to place the Digest in the context of
>journalistic history. He dares not consider the possibility that
>Wallace's "digesting the news" is a precursor to the dumbed-down,
>sound-bite journalism of USA Today and its McPaper clones. When, one
>wants to know, has the Digest ever been a beacon of magazine excellence?
> No, it always was the modest product of the aw-shucks, self-made man
>who saw himself as mentor to the masses. True enough, after he was gone,
>the Reader's Digest empire swung over to a rapacious bottom-line
>mentality. No one was questioning "the desire to make money."
> As an ironic result, doing good profited, too. The major Reader's
>Digest charities - Macalester College, Colonial Williamsburg, the
>Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Bronx Zoo, Lincoln Center,
>Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Hudson Highlands - reaped bonanzas in
>the hundreds of millions. Canning's final point is that, with exception
>of the first of these, they are all Laurance Rockefeller's pet
>charities, not the Wallaces'.
>
>Copyright 1996, Newsday Inc.
>
>Dan Cryer, Glory and Fall of Reader's Digest., Newsday, 12-02-1996, pp B02.
>
>
