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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

Cerf:

We went right to Charlie Allen. I trust Charlie Allen implicitly.

Q:

What year was this?

Cerf:

I've got it all down here. This was in 1959, right after The New Yorker had profiled me in two parts in May of 1959. When I went down to Wall Street, of course everybody there knew me from The New Yorker. They might have known me before from TV, but that two-part New Yorker had tremendous currency in the Wall Street sector.

I didn't like the profile. It was done by Geoffrey Hellman, who I think is one of the bloodiest bores in the world. He made my piece so boring that I had trouble reading some of it myself. But I soon discovered that most people, even in 1959, had stopped reading The New Yorker. They saw the two-part profile and they were very impressed that I was big enough to warrant a two-part write-up, but they never bothered reading it. I think that The New Yorker has become unreadable today. It's ready to be toppled over by some bright young newcomers.

Q:

Maybe New York Magazine.

Cerf:

I hope it does. This is well off the record. I'm interested in that new magazine. In fact, I'm going to put a little money into it just for the fun of it.

Q:

So you went down to Charles Allen.





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