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Why were they so interested in your proposal?

The same reason that NEA was. There was interest in setting up a proposal that would be labor based -- they had no labor proposals -- that might be a model for labor. There was a complete vacuum on labor proposals and labor support in the endowment. They were looking for something and they said, “You could be it, because you have the experience. You've showed that you can do things. You're proposing something very very big here.” Because by this time I was talking about a very big project, now. Because I was letting things roll -- you know, one thing was leading to another and I was coming up with ideas. Street fairs, just name it! I was adding things -- exhibitions.

Why was this particular group of federal bureaucrats so interested?

This is the Carter administration. Now the labor movement has been talking and been yapping about, “Hey. How come there's nothing in labor.” The new head of the endowment in the humanities is Joe Duffy. The head of the National Endowment for the Arts is Livingston Biddle, Jr., who had been the staff person to one of the senators from Rhode Island -- Claiborne Pell.

With a name like that it had to be Connecticut or Rhode Island.

Biddle is from the Biddles. Pell is from the Pells. Really, you know, they're very elitist people. But Biddle had been very involved in the endowments. He had written the legislation for the endowments that Pell had introduced. So they were interested in it.

Marty Sullivan -- he said, “There's no problem about a planning grant. But we can't guarantee what will happen later, you know -- they want to clear their skirts on it. Len says, “On the other things you talked about -- film, oral history -- I want you to meet the people in the various divisions. So he takes me to the film division to meet with the people. He says, “Tell them what you have in mind and what you've done.” I tell them and the guy in the film division says, “We know about that. We know John Schultz. Some of the people I know he knows.” Harold Cannon in oral history -- who's still there. I tell him about the oral history projects. He says, “When you submit, tell your writers -- Fink and Greenberg -- to submit a proposal to us for a grant. But a proposal cannot be submitted by individuals. They have to tie it to a non-profit institution, like a university.” Later on we decided it should be Cornell, because they have our materials. “But tell them when they put the proposal in to say that it's part of Bread and Roses.”