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Andrew HeiskellAndrew Heiskell
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Session:         Page of 824

Heiskell:

It was an underlying issue, oh, yes, very much so.

Q:

As the war progressed and the German-Soviet pact went by the boards, and Russia became our ally, once we were also geared up for war, did that change the Guild dealings during the war period?

Heiskell:

Once that had happened, and of course particularly once we got involved in the war, the whole issue of Guild and negotiations and so on took second place in the general picture, second or third place, because then the issue was how are we gonna keep enough people to get the magazine out because there wasn't--I think Harry Luce was still of draft age when we got into the war and that means that just about everybody else was of draft age except for women, who by definition were not of draft age. We might all have been drafted, except that the government worked out so-called Manning Tables that would allow essential industries to continue. It was obviously not to the advantage of the government to have, say, the New York Times or Time or Life fold. You needed them. So some complicated, scheme was worked out whereby a certain number people, luckly or unlucky depending upon how you look at it, did get drafted and a certain number didn't. I was among those who didn't because by then I think I'd just become general manager. C.D. Jackson had left. During the war, we worked with a very skinny crew, but also the work was totally different because in peace time you had a pretty good sense of how events were developing and you could assign writers and photographers to stories because you knew that, let's say, a strike was taking place in Pittsburgh or they were going to build a subway in Boston,





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