Cheque mate

THE PRESS

RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL

With advertising drying up as a result of Mr Wilson's squeeze, life is becoming grim in Fleet Street. Despite falling revenues, an expensive battle for circulation is still being fought. Cheque-book journalism is flourishing as sel- dom before. The current booty is Miss Svetlana's memoirs.

The American serial rights have been secured by the New York Times ($225,000) and Life ($375,000). The United Kingdom serial rights have gone to Mr David Astor's Observer for $220,000. The British bidding was highly competitive. The News of the World dropped out at $150,000. The under-bidders were the Sunday Times and Mr Michael Berry's Sunday Telegraph at about $210,000.

Now that the battle is over, recriminations can be heard round Fleet Street. Some' mis- understanding may have arisen because some bids were in pounds, some in dollars. Some say it was not a time auction and that the Observer had the inside edge. Svetlana's literary agent in London is A. P. Watt and Son. The senior partner, Mr Rubinstein, was a former editor of the Observer colour magazine. Moreover, Lord Goodman, chairman of the Observer Trust, is a friend of General Greenbaum, the American lawyer of the firm Morris Ernst, who has been advising Svetlana. It is thought that he deserves a good deal of the credit for the transaction.

It is evident that Svetlana has been guided in selecting her outlet by considerations other than cash. She definitely made it plain that she would prefer the German right to go to Der Spiegel rather than Stern, and in Italy Monda Dori got the book for $150,000, which was less than the bid by the rival firm, Fabbri.

In the London publishing world, too, there is a mystery. Like Hutchinsons, Weidenfeld and Nicolson bid £50,000: but Hutchinsons prevailed with the identical bid. Some people think Svetlana may have been influenced by Mr Kennan, since Hutchinsons once published Donald McLachlan is on holiday. •• one of his books. In Austria, Fritz Molden secured the German rights for $201,000. It may

be that Svetlana did not wish to use a West German publisher, but others, who see the hand of the CIA in everything, point out that Fritz Molden's first wife was a daughter of Alan Dulles, former head of that far-flung organisa- tion.

Not the least extraordinary aspect of the pandemonium which has accompanied this literary auction is that all the bidders have bid 'blind.' So far the translation from Russian is not complete. Indeed, Hutchinsons have issued a handout saying it is: 'A World Best Seller Before A Word Of It Is Even Translated.' The purchaiers seem to have acted upon the opinion of the translator. Mrs Priscilla Johnson, that it is 'one of the great documents of human destiny.' Mrs Johnson's literary credentials are not known.

Harper and Row will publish the book on 16 October. So will Hutchinsons according to present plans. But there is a serious fly in the ointment for Mr Astor. Serialisation starts in the New York Times on 8 October. They will print six instalments in that week. Life will print one instalment on 10 October. This means that the Observer will have only two instal- ments, on 8 and 15 October, before the book comes out. The Observer, therefore, would like Hutchinsons to delay publication at least until 23 October. Otherwise, Mr Astor may find that he has not got his money's worth.

The whole book is a bare 80,000 words and under the agreement 30,000 may be serialised. Hutchinsons are going to publish at 30s. Will people go on buying the shortened version of Svetlana in the Observer when the whole book is available in hard cover from Hutchinson? That is the question which is fascinating Fleet Street. Another inconvenience for Mr Astor will be that all the other Sunday newspapers will carry reviews of the Svetlana book on the second Sunday of serialisation, 15 October, and they will be able to quote and comment on the whole 80,000 words. In these circumstances, fifty shillings a word seems a lot.

Lord Goodman recently made a bet with Lord Thomson of f5 that the Observer would reach a circulation of one million before the end of the year. It is now about 910,000. Will Svetlana put on 90,000? And will the Observer retain the increase that the serial puts on? I think Lord Goodman will lose his bet.

Meanwhile, the News of the World is doing very well with another woman writer, Miss Jayne Mansfield. For a miserly £11,000 they put on 70,000. Of course, with a circulation of eight million that is under 1 per cent. The Observer will have to put on more than 10 per cent with a much briefer serialisation in a much shorter time if Mr Astor is going to hit a million and Lord Goodman win his fiver.

Has Mr Astor paid too much? He has paid more than twice as much as the Sunday Times for Manchester's Death of a President, and that ran to eight instalments before the book came out. Moreover, it received the most fantastic prepublication build-up that a book has ever received. Unless Svetlana. can be provoked to go to law about her contract as Mrs Jacqueline Kennedy did, nothing like the same interest can be built up in advance.

There is, however, a gimmick, or, if Mr Astor will pardon the phrase, 'a nigger in the woodpile,' which, willy-nilly, may come to the aid of the Observer. Some years ago when the Observer serialised the Penkovsky story, Moscow was indignant and made out that the Observer had been the dupe of the American Central Intelligence Agency who, they alleged, had fabricated the documents. The Observer correspondent was expelled from Moscow and when Mr Wilson %kited Moscow last year the Observer was not allowed to send anyone with him.

Now the Russians are saying that the Observer has again been duped by the CIA. This seems implausible, but it may still gain the Observer some much-needed publicity. The fact remains that the CIA spirited Svetlana from Delhi to Rome and from Rome to Switzerland. Mr George Kennan, former us Ambassador to Moscow. visited Svetlana in Switzerland at the request of the State Department: and on the basis of his report Svetlana was issued with an American visa. It was George Kennan who put Svetlana in touch with General Greenbaum, senior partner in the firm of Morris Ernst, and it was Kennan who brought Svetlana and Mr Cass Canfield, of Harper and Row, into the picture.

With these huge cheques whisking around Fleet Street Mr Harold Wilson's request to Lord Thomson to buy the Sunday Citizen and 'turn it into a newspaper' was obviously for- lorn and it is not surprising that Mr Wilson's behaviour has left a sour taste in the mouth of the cooperative movement.