William Randolph (Bill) Hearst, Jr., struggled to gain his famous father's respect, confidence, and legacy. Promoted often in title and rank within the Hearst Corporation, young Hearst was kept from real power by his father and the executives whom the elder Hearst hired to run his enterprises. After a successful but largely undistinguished career as a reporter and publisher in the news operation, Hearst inherited, upon his father's death in 1951, a publicly prominent but limited role in the faltering, though still vastly wealthy, Hearst Corporation. He presided over the decline of what was once the most powerful, innovative, and influential newspaper empire in the United States.

After acting as publisher of the New York American, Hearst,Jr., covered World War II as a correspondent for the paper and then resumed his career as a publisher, heading the New York Journal-American until 1960, when he was named chairman of the...