350 at Rally Accuse Random House of Killing Subsidiary

About 350 authors, editors, literary agents and sympathizers staged a noisy sidewalk protest Monday to accuse Random House of destroying one of its key subsidiaries for financial reasons.

“The bottom line is not the last word,” read one sign displayed outside the publishing giant’s mid-town headquarters, where a lunchtime crowd had to thread its way past police barricades.

The protesters charged that Random House owner Samuel I. Newhouse had effectively killed the subsidiary, Pantheon Books, by forcing the resignation Wednesday of its longtime editorial director, Andre Schiffrin.

Schiffrin reportedly had refused to cut his staff and the number of books he planned to publish.

Five of Pantheon’s six senior editors subsequently quit, saying Pantheon’s established role as a publishing house for unconventional and otherwise little-known writers was being ruined in the name of profits.

Random House chairman Alberto Vitale said he was “absolutely puzzled” by the reaction to Schiffrin’s resignation. He said Pantheon would have ceased to operate “a long, long time ago” without Random House’s support.

“It’s not Random House who is hurting anything,” Vitale said in a telephone interview.