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Andrew HeiskellAndrew Heiskell
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Session:         Page of 824

Heiskell:

I was chairman. I was co-chairman with A. Phillip Randolph, who was really fairly infirm and was mainly represented by Bayard Ruskin[?], who was a very, very smart fellow. But I was chairman and indeed, I was because the next day everybody went home and I suddenly realized that I was left holding the bag. Nobody else had been given any specific responsibility. We simply agreed on this platform. And here was little Andrew supposed to execute it with neither funds, personnel, or anything.

Q:

Go on.

Heiskell:

And also I had a full time job. I very rapidly got feeling quite panicky and discouraged, and really didn't know how to handle the situation because the staff people at Urban America were perfectly fine but they weren't up to that, that kind of a job. So one day I called Mac Bundy, who I knew who was the head of the Ford Foundation, and I said, “Mac, do you ever give advice instead of money?” And he said, “Yeah, sometimes.” And I said, “Well, I really need advice. I just got to get some advice from you. Can you see me?” He said, “Sure.” I remember very clearly it was a Friday and he said, “O.K., we'll get together tomorrow morning. Saturday.” So I went over to see Mac and we talked for several hours and agreed that the key to getting this moving was to get somebody with real standing and real





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