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Sounds like you were limited either to heavy industries, commodities, or the financial world. [laughs]

Well, there's some truth to that, yes. But if you look down the list that's really what it came down to. Bere is heavy industry, or academe. Xerox and Kearns--for some reason, the people in the new electronic business were not that competitive. It was all right to have an IBM man or a Xerox man; it was not all right to have a General Motors man or a Ford man. Interesting point you bring up there. And the composition does reflect those kinds of conflict.

What about in coverage in terms of, let's say, negative coverage in Fortune--I'm just making this up--of the purchase of Montgomery Ward by Mobil, with Rawleigh Warner on your board. Was that ever a problem? I don't mean that particular case--

Sure, sure. I'm sure it was a problem from time to time. When you invited somebody on the board, you always explained to them that one of the consequences might be an embarrassment somewhere down the line, because one publication or the other would be doing a story about them, and just because they were on the board was not a reason for not having them. As a matter of fact, we did Frank Pace in Fortune when he'd lost 425 million dollars. He was a very unhappy man.

Did he talk to you?