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Andrew HeiskellAndrew Heiskell
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Session:         Page of 824

the five million dollar profit, but he exceeded the 25 million dollar sales figure in five years, which was quite a showing. And that was a launcher for what became a half-billion dollar book enterprise until it faulted about twenty years later.

Q:

Okay. Let's go back. Tell you what I'd like you to do. The whole question of who decided what, when, and how decisions were made--as vague as the process might have been--

Heiskell:

Well, you just heard it. You just heard one. It's always very vague.

Q:

Yes. I want you, no matter what we're talking about, just to state it: you know, how decisions came about, or if it was by default, or you know--by somebody egging somebody on, or--just, just always bring that into our discussions. But what I'd like you to do now is tell me--you started to say about LIFE that you felt was faltering in the 1950s editorially. I want you to trace for me, from the time you became publisher of LIFE through the time LIFE folded, in 1972--tell me what happened to that magazine, from your point of view. The business side, talk about circulation, talk about editorial product--

Heiskell:

From 1946--we came out of the war with an enormous pent-up demand for the magazine, and the next five years we spent primarily fulfilling that pent-up demand, in terms of paper and circulation fulfillment, which we had discussed earlier, and printing facilities,





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