Yale Cuts Spock Story From Alumni Magazine

The Yale Daily News disclosed yesterday the removal of a six-page article on Dr. Benjamin Spock from the June issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine at the request of Yale President Kingman Brewster after it had already been set in type.

The action triggered the resignation of Rita Berkson, the associate editor of the magazine, who wrote the story on Spock. She left questioning, according to the News, "who makes editorial decisions for this magazine and with what in mind."

Brewster reportedly asked for the article's removal because he felt that it would appear almost simultaneously with the conclusion of Spock's trial in Boston, at which Spock and three others were accused and later convicted of conspiring to encourage draft resistance. Brewster also reportedly felt that publication of such an article would appear close to the time when the Yale Corporation was considering the re-appointment of Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin Jr., one of Spock's co-defendants.

The News reported that Brewster wrote to Tony Jones, the editor of the magazine, as soon as he heard about publication of the article on Spock. Brewster found out about the article from Howard Phalen, Yale's director of operations and head of its massive new fund drive, who had heard about the story from a Philadelphia alumnus, who in turn had heard about it from Jones in a speech given to the Philadelphia Yale Club last spring.

In his letter to Jones, Brewster wrote that the article would be an "open invitation to the suspicion of ideological promotionalism" on the part of the magazine.

Jones reportedly considered resigning his post after he received Brewster's letter, and also considered retaining the article. But without a meeting of the magazine's editorial board, which is legally charged with setting policy but which has not met since 1941, the News reported, Jones felt unable to take full responsibility.

Both Jones and a spokesman for Brewster told the Associated Press yesterday that the article had indeed been scrapped at Brewster's request. The new associate editor of the Alumni Magazine also confirmed the story.