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

Andrew HeiskellAndrew Heiskell
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Session:         Page of 824

black and Hispanic community because of the different education that received that there was a different level of, you know and also-

Andrew Heiskell:

But the choices were practically zero. You could search and search and you weren't going to find somebody. So if you were going to do something about it you would have to say to yourself, “I'm going to take some totally unqualified people and I'm going to train them here, spend three years training them.” And the success rate would probably have been very low. And one of the problems with forcing the issue is when you have a very low success rate, it's either your fault, or it's because you're a racist that they fail and get fired. So it has some of the qualities of a no-win situation. Some of the aspects of a no-win situation. And of course, you know, the answer is the one we know all about but we haven't solved it yet.

Q:

What were the attitudes of both Shepley and Donovan vis a vis the minorities and the women?

Andrew Heiskell:

As I remember, Donovan sort of worried about it, but his attitude was pretty much, “Do the best you can about the thing, and if you can't do it, that's that.” Shepley was more--well, he was funny. On this issue, as on many, he seemed not to care very much until suddenly he would explode about this as he did about quite a few other things. And get quite furious that the company was doing so poorly. And, “God damn it. We should do something.” And then he would go onto something else.





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