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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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the Pulitzer Prize!" Incidentally, this RCA Annual Meeting was slightly overshadowed by the fact that it was held on the very day that Indiana was having its primary election, in which Bobby Kennedy narrowly defeated Senator McCarthy. I left the RCA meeting to visit with Bobby Kennedy in his Indianapolis headquarters. This was the last time I ever saw him alive.

In early fall, I served as co-host on the Mike Douglas show for a solid week, and enjoyed the experience very much indeed. Also that fall, Harper's published my Treasury of Atrocious Puns.

1969

Random House's publication of Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint was an immediate sensation. It turned out to be the best-selling novel in the history of our firm, and for weeks on end, it was #1 on the national fiction best-seller lists. At the same time, we had the #1 spot on the non-fiction best-seller lists with Adam Smith's The Money Game.

In April of 1969, Random House moved to its own new building at 201 East 50th Street. Our old building on Madison Avenue across the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral had long been inadequate, and Random House operations were dispersed in no less than five separate buildings in Manhattan. Obviously, this was inefficient, but it broke my heart to leave the old building, and I believe to this day that we should have kept it for our editorial offices. The sale of Random





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