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What I wanted to ask you--and this could be a complete misinterpretation--is here we are in 1968: You were not yet CEO, there was still the triumvirate. Henry Luce was dead--correct me if I'm wrong on any of this--and this was when the profits were trending way down. I have a list here of net income through the years, and they were going from a high in 1966 of 37 million net income, '67 they were 30 million, '68 32 million, and they were going down at that point--because in 1969 they were 23 million. Was there a sense in that the Board really saying no to what management wanted? That was the first time around, and then they approved it the next time you went to the Board. Was there a moment in time when there was really a lack of confidence on the part of the Board in management, and what was going to happen to this company--profits were going down, Luce was dead--was there a period of time that you can remember like that?
Oh--well, yes. Those were pretty rough years! There wasn't anything very good on the horizon then other than we'd gotten out of biggest bloodletting which was--up to that time--which was Sports Illustrated. By then, Sports Illustrated had gotten into the black. But, as I think we talked about earlier, the problem was aggravated by sort of a question mark about where are our magazines going. Will there be any magazines? It wasn't just LIFE. It was--the wise men in the world were talking about the demise of the magazine industry! So obviously the directors were worried about that. Of course, one response by management to that kind of a
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