Decline and Fall

I stand with my back in the corner with a sword in one hand and a stilleto in the other""-that is Clay Blair talking, one of the four presidents of the S.E.P. during its raddled decline in the '60's. Actually its causes go back much further--to the '30's and the '40's and the limited view of earlier regimes as well as the profit-motivated system of competition of which it was the ultimate victim. Friedrich, its managing editor during its last phase, has written the most exhaustive book to date: Goulden's Curtis Caper--1965--dealt primarily with the earlier Post; Culligan's just appearing Curtis-Culligan Story (p. 33) is only a self-defensive coda. Friedrich's book, running to more than 500 pages and based on his own account of the time, retracks the whole disastrously embroiled attempt to salvage the magazine via Clay Blair (""elemental energy"" but a suggestion of instability), via Culligan, the patsy of the later palace rebellion, via Bill Emerson the last editor, and via an incredible entrepreneur ""Mortician Marty"" Ackerman who insisted he and his millions could save it. There's a lot here too about the financial backing (banker Semenenko--watch him), circulation, advertising (the under-cover aspects most people don't know about) and editorial control and in this case dedication which brought out some of the best issues of this magazine during its terminal period. A cautionary and uneasily prophetic story in these times when other mass magazines are undergoing many similar stresses; and in terms of general extensiveness of coverage and liveliness of tone, the best Postmortem to have appeared and likely to attract some of The Power and the Glory's readership.