Annenberg, Walter Hubert

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Annenberg, Walter Hubert

(1908-)
Annenberg Foundation

Overview

Walter Annenberg is well known as a publisher, philanthropist, and art lover. Heir to one of America's largest publishing empires, he managed to build his inheritance into an even greater force through his uncanny ability to predict the country's changing tastes and demands. Triangle Publications, under Annenberg's direction, developed and debuted Seventeen and TV Guide, two of America's most successful magazines. Annenberg's years as a publisher, however, were not without bitter criticism from those who charged him with using Triangle's Philadelphia Inquirer as a vehicle for his personal vendettas against members of the Philadelphia establishment who had steadfastly refused to admit him into their ranks. In the years since he sold off Triangle in 1988, Annenberg has further established himself as a philanthropist of extraordinary generosity. His Annenberg Foundation, founded in 1989, has distributed millions to educational institutions and most recently has focused on reforming pre–collegiate public school education.

Personal Life

Annenberg lives in suburban Philadelphia with his second wife, Lenore (Lee) Cohn Annenberg. He has a daughter, Wallis, from his first marriage to Veronica Dunkelman. That marriage ended in divorce and also produced a son, Roger, who committed suicide in 1962. Apart from managing his extensive philanthropic enterprises, he focuses much of his time on his vast collections of fine art.

Annenberg was born on March 13, 1908, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the only son of publisher Moses Louis Annenberg and Sadie Cecilia Friedman Annenberg. Moses Annenberg, a Russian Jew, came to this country from Russia at the age of eight in 1885. Tobias Annenberg, Moses' father, had shepherded Moses and his seven siblings from their native village of Kalvishken because of increasing persecution under the anti–Semitic regime of Czar Alexander III.

Walter Annenberg through much of his life has been inspired and challenged by his father's meteoric rise through the ranks of the publishing business. When he was old enough to work, Moses hooked up with the Hearst newspaper chain in Chicago, handling distribution chores. Moses proved willing to resort to some extreme measures to get the job done. When Hearst decided to launch the Chicago American in 1900, Moses and his staff used strong–arm tactics to ensure the paper got distributed. These tactics included assaulting rival distributors with baseball bats.

Moses moved his family to Milwaukee, where Walter was born in 1908. In 1922, Moses purchased the Daily Racing Form, the most popular horseracing publication in America. Shortly thereafter he founded Nationwide News Service, a wire service designed to disseminate racing results quickly and in detailed form. Before long, Moses added the Morning Telegraph to his stable of racing publications, now operating under the name of Triangle Publications. The older Annenberg next acquired the Philadelphia Inquirer, a purchase that soon got him and his son into hot water with the federal government. Moses unashamedly used his latest purchase as a vehicle to advance his political and ideological philosophy, which was deeply conservative and staunchly opposed to the liberal policies of the Democratic presidential administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Young Walter attended the prestigious Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey, and in 1927 graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School with a degree in business.

Career Details

Shortly after his graduation from the Wharton School in 1927, Walter joined the family business, eventually rising through the ranks to the position of vice president by 1939. That year, both Moses and Walter, as well as three Annenberg associates, were indicted on charges of tax evasion. The senior Annenberg, in April 1940, pleaded guilty to one count of evading taxes in return for the government's dropping all other charges against him, his son, and his associates. Moses was sentenced to three years in prison, and his companies were ordered to pay nearly $10 million in penalties. Moses was released from prison in June 1942 after he was diagnosed with a massive brain tumor. He died a month later. On the day of his death, according to biographer John Cooney, author of The Annenbergs: The Salvaging of a Tainted Dynasty, Moses told his son: "You know, Walter, who knows what is the scheme of things? My suffering is all for the purpose of making a man out of you."

Before his death, Moses had often confided in friends his profound doubts about Walter's readiness to take on the management of a major publishing chain. The challenge facing Walter was made all the more burdensome by the massive debt overhanging the company, much of it back taxes and penalties owed to the federal government. The family's humiliation over this widely publicized scandal and his subsequent efforts to repay the debt proved traumatic for Walter. In 1946, he told his fiancée that the whole affair had left him fearful of "getting enmeshed with federal trade authorities, Treasury snoopers, agents, immigration officials, Customs officers, and various and sundry other official (and officious) individuals who have and still would like to make life miserable for me."

Chronology: Walter Hubert Annenberg

1908: Born.

1927: Graduated with business degree from Wharton School.

1936: Father acquired Philadelphia Inquirer.

1939: Indicted, with father, on tax evasion charges.

1942: Father died, leaving Walter in charge of Triangle Publications.

1944: Seventeen launched by Triangle.

1953: Triangle began publishing TV Guide.

1969: Inquirer and sister newspaper sold for $55 million.

1969: Appointed ambassador to England by Nixon.

1988: Sold Triangle Publications for $3.2 billion.

1989: Established Annenberg Foundation.

However, when it came to managing Triangle, Walter proved himself more than equal to the task. Only two years after his father's death, Annenberg created a magazine for teenage girls, a market he believed was woefully underserved. That magazine, Seventeen, proved immensely popular right from the start and remains one of the best–selling publications in America. Annenberg's next brainchild proved even more inspired. Seeking to provide TV viewers around the country with an accurate guide to programming, Triangle, in 1953, launched TV Guide, a venture that many in the business felt sure was bound to fail, largely because it involved the publication of multiple regional editions. Although the guide got off to a somewhat slow start, it eventually grew into one of the top–selling magazines in the country, a position it continues to enjoy.

Like his father, Walter came under fire from critics who charged that he used his Philadelphia newspapers, particularly the Inquirer, as a weapon against some of his enemies as well as those in Philadelphia society who had rebuffed his efforts to join their ranks. Politicians opposed by Annenberg were often denied coverage in the newspaper altogether or subjected to vitriolic attacks on its editorial page.

Criticism of Walter's management of the Inquirer and its sister publication, the Philadelphia Daily News, came to an abrupt end in 1969, when Annenberg sold both Philadelphia newspapers for a reported total of $55 million.

That same year, Annenberg was nominated to be U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James in England—one of the most coveted diplomatic positions available—by President Richard Nixon, a close personal friend of the publisher. It was not a job that Annenberg jumped at, fearing he might bring dishonor upon Nixon and his country through his lack of diplomatic experience. In the end, he was convinced by Nixon to take the post and underwent a trying Senate hearing, during which his family's past entanglements with the law were thoroughly dissected. Despite this humiliating ordeal, Annenberg's nomination was approved. Both Annenberg and his wife, Lee, were met with a somewhat subdued reception by the British, particularly in the press where he was characterized as a wealthy American businessman who had bought the ambassador's job. However, Annenberg worked hard to master his new job and to learn more about the British people and their ways. Helping to win him acceptance among the British were a number of business deals between U.S. and British interests that Annenberg took steps to facilitate. By the end of his years in England, he had made close alliances with many in London, including the Queen Mother. He returned to the United States in 1974.

Throughout his lengthy publishing career and beyond, Annenberg developed and maintained strong ties with the nation's political leaders, particularly those in the Republican Party. In addition to his close relationship with Richard Nixon, Annenberg was good friends of Ronald Reagan, long before the latter was elected to the White House. In fact, in 1975 Annenberg introduced Reagan to Margaret Thatcher, whom Annenberg knew well from his days as ambassador to England. Reagan and Thatcher would later develop an extraordinarily close relationship themselves.

The collection of fine art—a passion of Annenberg's since the 1940s—occupied an increasing segment of his time after his return from London. A fancier of impressionist and post–impressionist art, he assembled one of the largest private collections of paintings from those periods. A strong believer in the importance of making great art accessible to all Americans, he unveiled a plan to create a fine arts center at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Annenberg's vision called for a center that employed a wide variety of media to teach the public about both the nature and history of art. When Met and city officials balked at Annenberg's plan, he abruptly withdrew his offer, which would have involved a grant of $40 million. In 1991 he once again demonstrated his belief in the role of the Met as America's premier art museum when he announced his intention to leave his beloved art collection to the prestigious New York museum upon his death.

In 1988, Annenberg sold Triangle Publications to Australia–born media giant Rupert Murdoch for $3.2 billion. The following year he founded the Annenberg Foundation, which today enjoys an endowment of more than $3 billion, making it the twelfth largest foundation in the country. From its inception, the focus of the foundation has been on improving the quality of pre–college education in this country. This is perhaps best exemplified by Annenberg's best–known grant—a total of $500 million pledged in 1993 towards school reform. Approximately 10 percent of the grant was earmarked for the National Institute of School Reform, based at Brown University, with most of the rest being distributed to bureaucrats, consultants, researchers, and study groups who specialize in school reform.

Social and Economic Impact

Annenberg built Triangle Publications—heavily burdened by debt when he inherited it in 1942—into a media giant of enormous influence. Most significantly, he developed and launched two of America's most successful magazines, TV Guide and Seventeen. In 1988, seeing no successor within his family to continue to lead Triangle, Annenberg sold his publishing empire to Rupert Murdoch for $3.2 billion. Perhaps even more important are Annenberg's contributions to his country as a philanthropist. Much of his generosity has been funneled through the Annenberg Foundation, which he founded in 1989 and which focuses largely on improving the quality of pre–college education in this country. Other recipients of Annenberg's beneficence have been art museums throughout the country.

Annenberg's generosity to educational institutions is legendary. He gave the University of Pennsylvania a grant of $239 million to set up the Annenberg School of Communications and later provided $177 million to the University of Southern California to set up a similar school there. He has added more than $130 million to the endowment fund of the Peddie School, the prep school he attended as a youth, and also made generous grants to the United Negro College Fund and Harvard University. Annenberg, in 1997, was described as "the most beneficent philanthropist in the history of the world" in a survey conducted by American Benefactor, a magazine that ceased publication in 1998.

Sources of Information

Contact at: Annenberg Foundation
St. David's Center, Ste. A–200, 150 Radnor–Chester Road
St. David's, PA 19087
Business Phone: (610) 341–9066
URL: http://www.whannenberg.org