Otis Chandler: From Surf Dude to Savior of the 'L.A. Times'

By: Greg Mitchell While I never met Otis Chandler, who passed away Monday at the age of 78, I felt I knew him, at least a little. His grandfather, Harry Chandler, and father, Norman Chandler, played key roles in my two California political campaign books, one set in 1934, the other 1950. Harry was a colorful character, while Norman was a bit dull. Otis took after Harry.

Consider this: On April 11, 1960, Norman Chandler was about to hand over the reins of the Los Angeles Times to his son Otis. The newspaper had been in the family since the 1880's, with its purchase by Harrison Gray Otis. Otis had passed it along to his son-in-law Harry Chandler, who had bestowed it on his firstborn, Norman. The changing of the guard was no small matter, for the Los Angeles Times was easily the most important newspaper in the state, and one of the largest in the country, if not among the best (to put it mildly).

So what was the first word out of Otis Chandler's mouth when introduced, to a crowd of 725 of Southern California's leading citizens, as the fourth publisher in the history of the paper? ''Wow.''

Then, as an afterthought, he added: ''If someone were to hand me a shot-put right now, I think I could put it 70 feet!'' This was no joke, for eight years earlier he had nearly made the United States Olympic team as a shot-putter. Still, the crowd could be forgiven for tittering. Otis was only 32 years old. He looked like a hot-rodding, iron-pumping surfer dude -- and in this case, looks were not deceiving. But they would not be laughing at Chandler for long.

Actually, the biggest joke in California was not the young publisher but the geriatric Los Angeles Times. It regularly appeared on lists of the 10 worst newspapers in the country. S. J. Perelman had once famously declared that on a train trip to California he asked a porter for a newspaper ''and unfortunately the poor man, hard of hearing, brought me the Los Angeles Times.'' The famed TV newsman Chet Huntley observed that by reading The Los Angeles Times he knew he could find the truth ''by going 180 degrees in the other direction.''

For decades, the newspaper remained aggressively mediocre despite its owners' deep pockets. Partisanship knew no bounds. In 1934, after the muckraker Upton Sinclair captured the Democratic nomination for governor and appeared headed for victory in November, the paper's political editor, Kyle Palmer, told a visiting reporter from The New York Times, Turner Catledge, ''We don't go in for ... being obliged to print both sides.'' He promised that his paper would ''kill'' Sinclair politically (and it did).

Sixteen years later, Palmer, still a political king-maker, wrote that his paper would promote the Senate candidacy of Richard M. Nixon, allowing that ''from time to time, as space allows,'' it might also cover his rival, Helen Gahagan Douglas.

It didn't take Otis Chandler long to tinker with this formula, to make the critics, as he put it, ''eat their bloody words'' and make the Los Angeles Times ''one of the world's great newspapers.'' Just months after he assumed office, the newspaper, which had endorsed Nixon for president, provided shockingly fair coverage of his opponent, John F. Kennedy -- which made Nixon livid.

The paper repeated this equal-time performance in 1962 when Nixon ran for governor against Pat Brown. Amazingly, it was a reporter from this still-Republican paper who was a prime target of the infamous ''You won't have Nixon to kick around'' statement. Otis Chandler's Los Angeles Times was on its way to becoming not only one of the richest but one of the two or three best newspapers in the country.

While land- and water-grabbing Harry Chandler was rather loathsome and Norman Chandler bland (even with the help his supercharged wife, Dorothy), Otis Chandler was a fascinating, unpredictable character. Tall, blond, handsome and a risk-taker nearly from birth, he was a college track star and into surfing before, and long after, the Beach Boys. A narcissist who never grew up, he raced motorcycles and cars into his golden years, then collected them and opened a vintage museum.

His whole life seemed to follow the advice of his auto mechanic, who told him: ''Drive fast. You're harder to hit.'' He also loved hunting, and Chandler bagged elephants, polar bears, bighorn sheep, and musk ox.

In remaking the Times he opened bureaus, hired superior editors and reporters, and printed investigative pieces like an expos? of the John Birch Society (even though his uncle Philip was a member). Over the following two decades the paper soared in quality, all the while making more money than ever and expanding the Times Mirror empire of media properties.

But, increasingly, the reactionary band of Chandler relatives exercised power on its board. In 1980, at the still-vibrant age of 52, Otis appointed a successor -- the first non-Chandler publisher. In 1986, Chandler was ceremoniously booted off the board. In the mid-1990s, the paper, still very profitable, wound up in the hands of a non-newspaperman, the former General Mills vice chairman Mark H. Willes (nicknamed ''the Cereal Killer''), who ordered broad cutbacks and eventually was dumped himself when the Tribune Co. purchased Times Mirror, ending the Chandlers' nearly 120-year stewardship.

What a career. What a life. In a word: Wow.