Marion Campbell and the Fight for The Atlantic (Part 1)

The face of Boston in her many guises is mirrored perfectly by her most famous literary institution, The Atlantic. Her fortunes were the fortunes of the families of the times. She was born into it, then married it and finally earned it herself. As the Brahmin’s ruled the Back Bay, so did they appear on the masthead. But in the era of Silicon Valley, The Atlantic became the toy of a brash young Jewish real estate tycoon named Mortimer B. Zuckerman. Over the course of a seven year scrabble, Marion Campbell and the Danielsons released their hold on the Boston magazine to such an extent that in 2005 it floated away to Washington, D.C.

Under the management of the Richard Danielson,The Atlantic was consistently in the red. Its owners found it acceptable, even honorable, to lose money for the right cause, sometimes piles of money. The magazine was run as a literary public service and the most its overseers hoped for was to break even. Since Zuckerman was not ‘one of them’, the management didn't feel the need to point out this aristocratic philosophy.

Zuckerman really had no idea what he bought when he signed an agreement for 3.6 million (thought to be a steal) to purchase The Atlantic, its valuable federal-style offices at 8 Arlington Street and half of Atlantic Monthly Press, a book publishing subsidiary, from Marion Campbell and 15 other stockholders in 1981. The Atlantic, being privately held, was not required by law to publish an annual report and had never disclosed its precise earnings (or shortfalls). Within a year Marion and four of those stockholders would file suit against Zuckerman for non-payment and, more grievous, for bad manners. He had accused them of deceit, not behind closed doors in a smoky social club, but in the press. Money is sacred in frugal New England but a good name is priceless.

Zuckerman can be summed up in one word: ‘ambition.’ He began life in Montreal, the son of a tobacco and confections wholesaler and rose to become number 153 on Forbes Magazine’s 400 richest Americans in 2005, with a net worth of 1.9 Billion. Bill Gates was again #1 with $51 billion. (What a surprise.) Microsoft also got numbers 3 and 11. The Walton family hogged numbers 6 through 10. Michael Dell snatched position #4 and the Mars family gobbled up places 19 through 21 with 30 billion sitting sweetly among them. Ebay and Google rode the net elevator up to numbers 16, 17 and 18.

While the computer and general store moguls were satisfied with vast piles of money, Mort wanted something more elusive; glamour and prominence. New York Magazine labeled him ‘a little more than just casually Gatsby-like’. When Zuckerman was approached by Atlantic editor Manning (something Manning denies), he jumped at the chance to buy into high-brow circles. Atlantic publisher Garth Hite told the New York Times “We have had our good years and our bad years, and we have been approached by numerous parties, both large and small. Our circulation is at an all-time high, our books are enjoying visibility and prosperity, and we were not looking for a buyer, but I suppose everyone has his price”.  

Mort desperately wanted Richard Danielson's sparking style and literary prowess, and if he had to buy Dick’s magazine to get it he would. He had the dough and he could to buy his way into society. His purchase of The Atlantic Monthly would allow him to act like Boston royalty. As a magazine owner he would be asked to give his opinion on foreign affairs talking with respected PBS host Charlie Rose, but so would a decidedly inarticulate Michael Eisner. Zuckerman wanted suave Manhattanites friends such as Gloria Steinem, Betty Rollins, Nora Ephron, and Diane Von Furstenberg. He would eventually marry a brainy National Gallery curator named Marla Prather, in 1996 and live in a huge beach house in East Hampton.

Mortimer Zuckerman made the first installment of $900,000 but within a few months of buying when he realized he had been bested in a shrewd deal. The Atlantic and her sister companies were on shaky financial ground and in need of a shot of capital to keep them going. While the books had been opened to Zuckerman before the deal, not all was revealed. Just before he was to pay the second installment on April 30, 1981, a rumpled pile of memos were found stuffed in the back of a file cabinet at 8 Arlington Street. Memos from former publisher Garth Hite to treasurer Arthur Goodearl had suggestions like 'make the bottom line look as good as possible’. This sensational discovery coupled with his anxiety about the reality of shoring up the magazine with his newly acquired cash, outraged Zuckerman. He stopped all payments and claimed ‘foul’ in the courts. While his contention that ‘the books had been cooked’ was later proved to be unfounded, the former owners had whipped up a batch of no-bake fudge. While Hite, who stayed on for a few months after the change of ownership, had painted a rosy picture of a break-even business which simply might need an infusion of say $1.5 million over the next three years. Zuckerman spent $1.8 million in the first year.

Marion and her lawyers filed suit in June of 1981 for breach of contract and Zuckerman countersued for fraud. Amazing, within a week of filing suit, Marion offered to drop her suit and take back The Atlantic Monthly, with no hard feelings. She considered the offer quid pro quo as ‘there has not been a material impairment of the company’s functions since the period of Mr. Zuckerman’s ownership’. She went on to say to a Boston Globe reporter that she ‘believed that it was doubtless a mistake for all concerned to have sold The Atlantic Monthly in the first place’.