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publishing houses. They were worried that they weren't getting enough publishers‘advertising for Saturday Review of Literature, and they conceived the idea of going around to see the publishers and asking, “Well, how can we improve our magazine? How can we give more service to the publishers so they'll give us some more advertising?”

When they came to me--this was the first time that I had met Cousins--I said, “One thing you could do is to put a little bit more humor in that paper. To me, it's a terribly serious paper, very, very pompous and pedantic at times. A little humor would help a lot! There's plenty of fun in the book business, and this can be mined.” Well, they thanked me for the suggestion and left.

About two days later, Norman Cousins called up and said, “We've discovered who we want to provide the humor you suggested! Chris Morley had been doing “Tradewinds” but he was stopping for one reason or another. Norman continued, “The man we want is you!" Of course I was flattered beyond measure. I said, “How can I do this? Tradewinds must concern itself with publishing and book news. I'm a publisher. I'd step on the toes of other publishers and get them angry because I'm not very diplomatic or tactful. If I do it, I'm going to say what I think.” Norman said, “That's just what we want. I'm sure the other publishers will understand.” I said, “I don't think that they will, but let me think about it.”

Well, I asked a couple of associates about it, and