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don't know, it got to nearly half a billion dollars in volume. Was it Joan Manley who was the first group president? No, there was somebody--I forget whether there was somebody ahead of her or not, as group vice president, but for a long time she was group vice president for books. So that was quite a few layers, probably as many as you could have.

And that's pretty much the way the corporation operated through most of the 1970s?

Yes.

And how did--what were the dynamics of you and Shepley, for example?

Well, again, in the late 1960s, Shepley spent more of his time on cable--HBO had started--and Texas; and I spent more of my time on LIFE. [laughter]

Constantly?

Constantly, constantly. I've often wondered how many things I might have achieved if I hadn't spent so much of my time trying to figure out what the answer was to LIFE, and, in retrospect, obviously, there was no answer to it. But you don't let anything that big and important go down the drain without making every last possible effort. Then, you know, there's an awful lot of just sheer