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Just for your information, the board statement about what the role of the editor-in-chief was was adopted on December 21st, 1978, according to Prendergast, and Henry Grunwald was appointed editor-in-chief effective June 1st, 1979.

Oh, yes. That's right. That's right.

But we'll talk about that later? Let's stay earlier now.

So in 1969, they wanted me to be C.E.O., and clearly there had to be a president. That was a very difficult decision, because Donovan and I had been gingerly promoting Jim Shepley, first to publisher of Fortune, and then to publisher of Time. I say gingerly because Jim was brilliant, irascible, and explosive. And when he exploded, the entire building shook. And he exploded quite often. But he was very, very capable. He did well at Fortune, and despite explosions, which became less frequent when he was publisher of Time--there were some fairly sizable ones. And we finally proposed to the board that Shepley be made president and chief operating officer, with some fear on my part and Hedley's of what might happen here. You know, if he gets more power and explodes, the explosion was just going to be a lot louder. [laughs]

Had you two been considering anyone else?

Yes, but there wasn't anybody else that really was that