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Andrew HeiskellAndrew Heiskell
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Session:         Page of 824

around the world, maybe not every other week but an awful lot, to the point where even at his age--which was then what? Forty-five, something like that, fifty? No, yes. Fifty. He was doing too much of it. He was gaining weight, he was also drinking a lot, and I kept saying, “Jim, you know, you can't go on doing it this way because one day this is going to get you down.” And he said, “Oh, I don't care. I'd just soon go like that [snap of fingers].” And I said, “Jim, nice to think that you can go like that, but it's more apt to be that you won't go like that. You'll just get felled, and be an invalid.” “Oh, no, no. Not me.” So things got rather difficult. He was just not there when he was needed, and a lot of--you know, it got to be sort of resented around the place, and he was drinking a lot, and it showed.

Q:

Was he alcoholic? He was alcoholic.

Heiskell:

I would say pretty close, yes. Yes.

Q:

How would it show?

Heiskell:

He'd get out of control in the evenings, and he'd say all sorts of wild things. It got to be very embarrassing. It got to be very embarrassing, but it's also very embarrassing where there was no C.E.O. to do something about it. And this was what was weighing on Hedley's [Donovan] and my mind.

Q:

Was Luce dead at this point? Luce died in 1967, as I recall.





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