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Andrew HeiskellAndrew Heiskell
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Session:         Page of 824

Q:

Of course, Thorndike was only managing editor for how long, three years?

Heiskell:

Three years.

Q:

Why is that?

Heiskell:

He wasn't a success really.

Q:

Why wasn't he a success?

Heiskell:

[long pause] I don't think he had enough feel for the country, for people, for the various forms of news. I don't remember that he was very good at energizing people, at making them enthusiastic, at sort of building collective enthusiasm for the job.

Q:

Before we get to the publishing side, in this 1946 change of guard, Luce did a lot of writing about--you've mentioned his memos--about Life and what it should it be. He spoke of this new, or I don't know whether it was new but, the Modern Living Department, which is one of these four departments I've just mentioned, as being the nexus between editorial and advertising. I'll quote to you from Lauden Wainwright's book. See if you remember anything about this at all. This is a quote, this is Luce's writing.

“Now what is the main moral problem presented by advertising? It is of course that advertising powerfully directs and concentrates the attention of the reader on material satisfaction. It is more and more the style these days even among businessmen to denounce Russian communism as ‘materialistic’ but there is of course no greater





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