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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

Q:

And yet, was he involved in the decision over the Gottlieb?

Cerf:

Oh, we didn't talk to Gottlieb until we had talked it all over with Alfred. He hadn't met them yet, but I was able to convince him that he was now seventy-five years old and after all...

Q:

However he was quoted somewhere as saying, “Oh, well, I didn't have anything to do with this.”

Cerf:

That's a typical Alfred Knopf remark. He was irritated. He's often irritated when people call him up and impulsively makes some kind of a statement that he shouldn't have made, and this was a typical Alfred Knopf indiscretion. It's true that he didn't conduct any of the negotiations and he didn't even know these people personally when I broached him on the subject, but I briefed him fully. I said, “These people come in as a unit. They want to come in as a separate publishing unit, and I think that Knopf's is going to need them because, let's face it, Alfred, you're letting go gradually and you're less and less interested in trade books.” He still loves to see professors, and his history list is superb. That is what Alfred still loves to do, to go around to the universities and have dinners given in his honor and be a big shot, like all of us do; but when it comes to communicating with the young authors, he doesn't understand their language at all.





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