Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Session:         Page of 1029

House to RCA had already blunted the supreme happiness I always felt working at Random House and the move from this beautiful building on Madison Avenue intensified my disaffection. Toward the end of the year, my enthusiasm for our tie-up with RCA was further lessened when I learned that because of my age, I would have to give up my membership on the RCA Board of Directors. Lest all this sounds like sour grapes, I must say that we received a whopping good price for Random House when we sold it to RCA and that I made the deal with my eyes wide open--so I really have no right to belly-ache at all about subsequent developments.

In the fall of 1969, my wife Phyllis and I did a lot of special work on behalf of John Lindsay for his running for re-election as Mayor of New York. We were very happy the night that he won. We also had as our overnight guests at our New York house Senator George McGovern and his wife. McGovern has a 1 in 100 chance of winning the Democratic nomination for President in 1972, and I wanted him to meet big shots like Punch Sulzberger of the New York Times, Mike Cowles of Look, and Andrew Heiskell of Time-Life. The verdict that evening was that he was a good man, but that he lacked the forcefulness and charisma a successful politician must have in this television era.

I was also getting more and more involved in various committees trying to put an end to our disgraceful war in Viet Nam. As I dictate these notes, there is little sign





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help