Aug. 8, 1957
Los Angeles
Prosecutors opened the case against Confidential and Whisper by
charging that the magazines used prostitutes to lure movies stars into
compromising situations and published the incidents in scandalous
articles. The magazines, Publishers Distributing Corp. and Hollywood
Research Inc. were charged with printing lewd, obscene materials and
advertising abortions and male rejuvenation.
The first order of business for Assistant Atty. Gen. Clarence Linn and
Deputy Dist. Atty. William L. Ritzi (who will be the judge in the Patty
Hearst case) is to show the close financial ties between the magazines
and Hollywood Research Inc., run by Fred and Marjorie Meade.
Noting that Marjorie Meade was the niece of Robert Harrison, the
publisher of Confidential and Whisper, Linn said: "Records will show
that they [the Meades] bought stories from people of the night life,
questionable characters, private detectives."
Linn added: "We will show that the printed material was lewd and
obscene, that it had a substantial tendency to corrupt and that an
attempt was made to impeach the honesty and integrity of living
persons. We will not attempt to turn this court into an animated
Confidential."
Defense attorney Arthur J. Crowley replied: "The evidence will show
that these stories are not innuendo but that the real stories behind
the articles are far worse than the stories that are printed."
Insisting that articles such as "Don’t Take Those Abortion Pills" were
a public service, Crowley said: "There was no intent here to crucify
any individual for one slip off the straight and narrow. There was
never any desire by Harrison or anyone else to injure anybody."
The American Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile, submitted a brief to the
U.S. Court of Appeals seeking to keep Atty. Gen. Pat Brown from barring
distribution of the scandal magazines during the trial.
Attorney A.L. Wirin said that although the ACLU had no sympathy with
Confidential or Whisper, "it does support the right of any publication
to be free of censorship" until the prosecution of the magazines was
finished, The Times said.
To be continued
ladailymirror.com 
Last night TMC ran an interview with Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. Mitchum told of a Confidential story where he had supposedly appeared at a party naked. He sued Confidential and won. Then he remarked how one of the publishers had jumped off a building.
–Somewhat true. He did sue Confidential. Confidential editor Howard Rushmore killed his wife and committed suicide in a taxicab. See the May 15, 1957, post on Ronnie Quillan.
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