Kermit Lansner; Former Editor of Newsweek

Kermit Lansner, 78, a former Newsweek editor who helped shape the future of weekly newsmagazines. Lansner first had a career as a philosophy professor and, married to an artist, was editor of Art News. But when Osborn Elliott became editor of Newsweek in 1961, he asked Lansner and Gordon Manning to join him as executive editors. The well-balanced trio from diverse backgrounds acquired the nickname “the Flying Wallendas,” after the coordinated circus trapeze act, and together gave Newsweek a broad perspective. Lansner in particular contributed a cultural aspect to the newsmagazine coverage of 1960s and 1970s events, including the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. He was Newsweek’s managing editor from 1964 to 1969, when he became editor, serving until 1972. He later worked as a columnist and contributing editor for the magazine. Lansner was also a senior vice president of the Louis Harris & Associates polling firm. In the 1980s he was editor of Financial World, for which he served as a columnist in the 1990s. A native of New York, Lansner was educated at Columbia University and served with Navy intelligence as a Japanese-language officer during World War II. On Saturday in New York of lung cancer.