I've come across a copy of Life Magazine from July 10, 1964 and I propose we take a little walk down memory lane. This will be a many-part entry, but I'll provide links that allow you to traverse only the entries about the magazine, without treading through all of the other stuff posted here.

From the cover, you can see that we're going to have fun. The first headline on the left reads, "More nudity in public, The Topless Suit". Yes, boys and girls, we're talking topless swimsuits and, yes, there will be pictures! Next, we're going to be subjected to Lee Harvey Oswald's diaries from a trip to Russia (I didn't even remember that he had been in Russia). The last headline is about the fifth part of a series about General MacArthur and the war in the pacific. Yes, that was twenty years before this issue came out, but Life Magazine was about pictures and pictures of MacArthur they had.

After a couple of ads, we come to the contents page, which has a chatty little update about a new feature in the magazine:

Some of you have been kind enough to congratulate us on Life Reviews, a new section which has been running for the last three months. We enjoy it ourselves. It gives us a chance to express points of view on books, movies, TV - and whatever else needs a jaundiced or beamish eye. This week, for example, you'll read political pollster Samuel Lubell staunchly defending brains against computers on page 8, Movie Editor Richard Oulahan falling for Ava Gardner's acting on page 11 and Modern living Editor Eleanor Graves peddling mutter paneer Jaipure on page 12.

The man who selects, assigns, assembles and agonizes over this every week is Review Editor Bayard Hooper, now taking a summer breather on his sloop on Long Island Sound and probably doing some reading.
...
Hooper came to Life in 1951 and showed an unusual interest in our picture department. Then he married the girl and moved out to work in almost all our departments.

OK, so it was a lame little joke about the girl, but that's what it was like around the old office water cooler in 1964. Also, I'm no editor, but shouldn't that be "all of our departments"? The bonus here is that we get a picture of Mr Hooper (and what kind of name is Bayard? The only other Bayard Google seems to know about is Bayard Rustin, a civil rights activist - but born in 1912, about the same time as our Bayard here). He has struck for us Standard Editor Pose number 42: the pensive gaze into the distance, hand on chin, with the optional pencil behind ear. He elected to be shown with shirtsleeves down, instead of rolled up, probably to cultivate a more elevated look than the Lou Grant style of having the sleeves rolled up. Interestingly, Bayard Hooper has left barely a trace on the Internet: Google only finds nine hits. He apparently moved on to Newsweek by the late 1970's and he wrote a little 32-page book called Christmas Secrets that is out of print, but a used, remaindered copy is for sale on Amazon. Apparently, this book (mentioned here) is an illustrated children's book about some girls tugging on Santa's beard. But enough of Mr Hooper, he will play no further part in our little fun.

Samuel Lubell (1911-1987) was a writer, political pollster and educator. An Amazon search turns up about ten books, most of them about politics. From his biography (which I paid $2.30 to read from Amazon - nothing is too good for my blog readers), there is this interesting tidbit:

He was particularly well known for his unorthodox and generally very accurate opinion polls in national elections. His technique involved, basically, traveling widely and talking informally with a large number of people, and reporting his results in narrative summaries rather than in statistical analyses.

We can now see why he wanted to defend brains against computers. Remember, this is a time when your water bill had started coming in the mail as a punch card, on which you were admonished, "do not fold, spindle or mutilate". In those early days, the bill was about as likely to be wrong as right and people were rightly skeptical that computers would ever be useful. By arguing against computerization, Mr Lubell not only thought he was defending humanity, but he was playing on a popular meme of the time that was sure to draw an audience.

Richard Oulahan shows up here and there on the Internet today, including this page, where his review of the movie Fail Safe is mentioned. Writing in Life only a few months after this issue, he said, "The picture is so stylishly produced, so well-acted, and so loaded with suspense that millions of moviegoers will probably believe it all could happen this way." Of course, we now know it couldn't have happened the way it does in the movie, but there's no need to quibble.

Eleanor Graves is too common of a name to Google with much success, but she apparently did edit a cookbook, based on her recipes from Life Magazine: Great Dinners from Life Magazine.

1964 was a big year. It was the year that major Civil Rights legislation passed (although there were lots of protests still to come). The Beatles were big and New York City was having its notorious World's Fair. At the Movies, we had Dr Strangelove and Goldfinger. Check back soon, there will be a lot more from this issue of Life, including, of course, pictures of the topless swimsuit in action.

Note: this entry is part of a series called "Life Magazine, 1964", which contains the following entries:
     Life Magazine, 1964
     Life Magazine, 1964, Part II
     Life Magazine, 1964, Part III
     Life Magazine, 1964, Part IV
     Life Magazine, 1964, Part V