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Kenneth ClarkKenneth Clark
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Session:         Page of 763

APA.

By the way, I'm getting the same way about the Board of Regents: I hate like hell to go to their meetings.

Well, anyway -- so, when I'm now president-elect, obviously I've got to go to the meetings. And obviously I've got to try to learn what it's about, and I've got to at least give the impression of being interested. But it may interest you to know that, as president-elect, I sat right beside the president-- wonderful guy who preceded me, George Albee. And George, I had known before, when he was professor at Case Western Reserve, where I used to go out there and give talks about once a year, and I got to know him and his family. I used to write little notes to George saying, “Look -- you've got to help me to learn to take this seriously.”

You know. And he says he's kept some of these notes.

I needed George, to help me to keep from betraying that I really wasn't interested, because I had to get interested, you know.

So after the meetings, we would go out for a drink and talk and what not, and George said, “OK-- you'll live. You'll come around to it.”

Well, one of the things that I saw very early was that, no one really knew what the role of the president of the American Psychological Association was supposed to be-- whether it was supposed to be ceremonial, or whether he was supposed to attempt to exercise some power. What the hell? You know, it seemed to me that after a person was elected president of the APA, he could just as soon say, “Thank you very much,” and leave the running of the





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