Gilbert A. Harrison, 92; 20-year editor of New Republic
Gilbert A. Harrison, former editor and publisher of the New Republic magazine who ran the influential Washington-based weekly for 20 years, died of congestive heart failure Jan. 3 at Hospice of the Valley in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 92.
Harrison published an intellectual, liberal but nondoctrinaire journal of opinion, politics and arts that was an early opponent of the Vietnam War. He was considered an excellent "pencil editor" -- someone who could mark up and improve a writer's work -- and was skilled at identifying and hiring talented journalists before they were known commodities.
The magazine, founded in 1914, was considered for most of the 20th century the leading liberal political magazine in the nation.
One anecdote, indicative of the magazine's power in its heyday, recounted Harrison writing an editorial calling for a Democratic Party challenge to President Lyndon B. Johnson. The next morning, his doorbell rang, and there stood Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy with the New Republic under his arm and a light in his eye.
Asked about it in 1970, both men pooh-poohed the idea that the editorial had pushed McCarthy into the 1968 presidential race. But McCarthy said, "I did used to talk to Gil quite a bit about it."
Through his 20 years at the magazine, Harrison collected writers including John Osborne, who wrote the "White House Watch" column during the Watergate era; Richard Strout, who penned the TRB column; literary editor Doris Grumbach; and theater critic Stanley Kauffmann. Investigative reporter James Ridgeway became nationally known when he revealed in the magazine that General Motors had hired private detectives to tail consumer advocate Ralph Nader.
Harrison received the prestigious George Polk Award for magazine writing in 1963.
Harrison bought the New Republic in 1953. He sold it in 1974 to Martin H. Peretz for $380,000. Harrison expected to stay on as editor-in-chief until 1977, but differences between owner and editor quickly arose, and he left after a few months. Peretz sold two-thirds of the magazine's ownership to two financiers in 2002.
In 1969, Harrison bought Liveright Publishing, a book publisher that had launched William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and Sherwood Anderson and whose backlist contained works of Eugene O'Neill, Robinson Jeffers, Sigmund Freud and Theodore Dreiser. He sold that company too in 1974.
