The Press: Sponged & Expunged

In their gutter-eye view of America, U.S.A. Confidential, the New York Daily Mirror's Editor Jack Lait and Nightclub Columnist Lee Mortimer threw enough mud to bring six libel suits against them (TIME, May 19). Biggest of the six was by Dallas' elegant Neiman-Marcus store. It sued for $7,400,000 on the basis of Lait & Mortimer's statement in the book that "some Neiman models are call girls—the top babes in town . . . Price, a hundred bucks a night. The salesgirls are good, too . . . twenty bucks on the average." Named with Lait & Mortimer were Crown Publishers, Inc....

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