The perilous fight: the rise of Ramparts magazine, 1965-1966.(Essay)

AT ITS PEAK, Ramparts magazine was America's premier leftist publication. Founded by Edward Keating in 1962, it began as a Catholic literary quarterly based in Menlo Park, California. But when a young Warren Hinckle became editor in 1964, he turned Ramparts into a monthly, hired Dugald Stermer as art director, shifted the magazine's focus to political topics, and recruited Robert Scheer to write about U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Over the next four years, Ramparts moved to San Francisco, adopted a cutting-edge design, forged links to the Black Panther Party, exposed illegal CIA activities in America and Vietnam, and published the diaries of Che Guevara and staff writer Eldridge Cleaver.

A Time magazine headline in 1967--"A Bomb in Every Issue"--described the magazine's impact. (1) The same year, Ramparts earned a George Polk Award for excellence in magazine journalism, and its circulation climbed to almost 250,000. But the magazine declined as quickly as it had risen. After filing for bankruptcy in 1969, Ramparts was reorganized and published with diminishing success until 1975, when it closed for good. Since then, the Ramparts story has slipped off the public radar. (2)

Ramparts' rapid ascent was propelled by an extraordinary combination of events, decisions, and improvisations undertaken shortly after Keating ceded editorial control of the magazine to Hinckle. This essay, adapted from a longer study of the magazine's history and influence, focuses on an especially critical period in the magazine's development. (3) Although Ramparts' success cannot be traced to any specific person, Hinckle's decision to hire Robert Scheer dramatically changed the course of the magazine, and Ramparts' mercurial confluence of raw talent, youthful energy, and dazzling showmanship would shape progressive journalism for a generation.

TRANSFORMATIONS

As Hinckle took the editorial reins at Ramparts, the nation was slowly turning its gaze to Vietnam. Few had protested when the Kennedy administration backed the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, but by 1963, Diem had lost support even in South Vietnam, where the Buddhist majority resented his pro-Catholic policies. When the Kennedy administration signaled that a coup would be welcome, South Vietnamese generals assassinated Diem and his brother in early November 1963. Three weeks later, Kennedy himself was slain in Dallas.

The following year, a U.S. spy ship reported that it had been fired upon in the Gulf of Tonkin, and President Lyndon Johnson ordered a retaliatory air strike against two North Vietnamese naval bases. Three days later, and three months before the 1964 presidential election, Congress authorized Johnson to use whatever force was necessary to support freedom and protect peace in Southeast Asia. Although Johnson declared that he sought no wider war, he also maintained that the United States would defend its national interests.

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