The émigré editor of one of Europe's great newspapers last week told what happens when a democracy's press is corrupted by its politicians. The country was France. The editor was Pierre Lazareff of Paris-Soir. His Deadline (Random House; $3) was a telling documentation of the thesis that "France was undermined and betrayed from within" because "the French people were systematically misled by a venal and treasonous press."
The low morale and the confusion with which France entered World War II, Lazareff traced to false reporting, kept publishers, and the press service stranglehold...