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TIME MAGAZINE - 1961

 

"the Overseas Weekly ... takes particular delight in headlining the missteps of military brass. By last week, [the paper] had claimed a two-star victim."


"THE G.I.'s FRIEND"

Jun. 9, 1961

To U.S. servicemen in Europe, it is the "Oversexed Weekly." To Major General Edwin A. Walker, late of the 24th Infantry Division stationed in West Germany, it is "immoral, unscrupulous, corrupt and destructive." To its proprietor, Marion Rospach, 36, a stocky, energetic divorcee with a tomboy bob, it is a paper of high moral tone because it refuses to cover sodomy cases or "trials involving indecent assaults on children." But the Overseas Weekly, an English-language tabloid published in Frankfurt, West Germany, balks at little else, takes particular delight in headlining the missteps of military brass. By last week, the Overseas Weekly had claimed a two-star victim.

Trouble started last April when the Overseas Weekly mounted an all-out assault on General Walker and charged that by pamphlet and speech he was indoctrinating his troops with the far-right politics of the John Birch Society. Walker, the paper reported, had made public statements to the effect that Edward R. Murrow and Columnist Walter Lippmann were "confirmed Communists" and that 60% of the U.S. press was Communist controlled. As a result of the story. General Walker was relieved of his command. Walker has sued an Overseas Weekly reporter for slander - and Marion Rospach has sued the general for slander. Suddenly, after eleven unsung years on foreign newsstands, Overseas Weekly is the center of a controversy on both sides of the Atlantic. In Washington, U.S. Representative Dale Alford of Arkansas proposed a congressional investigation: "Who are these people? What is their background, and what are their political views?"

Apart from the General Walker incident, the Overseas Weekly is strictly apolitical. Its chief claim to attention is that it has consistently sided with the G.I. Last year, when a proud father - who also happened to be an ordnance colonel - dressed his nine-year-old son in a lieutenant's uniform and then lined up the troops for Junior's inspection, the paper printed an exclusive story. In 1959, when a captain, outraged because nocturnal trespassers were trampling his tulips, posted a 24-hour armed guard in his garden, the Overseas Weekly told all about it.

Such exposes have naturally endeared the Overseas Weekly to enlisted men abroad, and circulation has risen to 50,000. Along with reports on martinet officers go eye-popping pin-up pictures of bosom and thigh, twelve pages of colored comics, and a news emphasis on murder, rape and other G.I. crimes. "It depresses me to read that paper." said one jaded subscriber. "Man, everybody in it is either dead or dying or going to Leavenworth."

Publisher Rospach has never been bothered by such criticism. The Overseas Weekly is the type of tabloid that she had in mind in 1950 when, after serving a stint on Stars and Stripes, she decided to launch a paper that would begin where the semi-official Stars and Stripes left off. By 1953 she was serializing ex-G.I. George Jorgensen's operation (CHRISTINE CASTRATION RAPPED) and the details of Call Girl Pat Ward's journey into prostitution. The USAREUR (U.S. Army in Europe) command removed Overseas Weekly from Stars and Stripes newsstands all over Europe. Owner Rospach responded by flying to Washington, where she fast-talked a few Congressmen into getting the ban lifted.

Since then, the Overseas Weekly has not had a uniformed friend overseas above the rank of NCO. But the paper now runs 30 or more pages per issue (nearly 50% ads), has correspondents in Paris, London, Munich and Stuttgart, and has midwifed two other Rospach publications: Overseas Family (circ. 20,000), addressed to servicemen's wives, and Overseas Traveler (circ. 5,000), a tourist guide. For better or worse, Marion Rospach's Overseas Weekly has cast its lot with the enlisted man, who has yet to lose its timeless war with the brass.

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