The caption in the April 12, 1960, New York Times, beneath a picture of the Birmingham, Ala., police commissioner, was hardly calculated to please the subject. "Police Commissioner Eugene Connor," it read, "was elected on a race hate platform." Other references to Connor, in Timesman Harrison Salisbury's accompanying two-part story on race tensions in Birmingham, were no more flattering. "Bull" Connor sued the Times for $400,000 in damages, and was joined in his action by six other Alabama officials. Last week in Birmingham, four years after publication of the Times story, a federal-district-court jury awarded Connor $40,000.
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