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go to Plan B and would I mind if he took me out of the picture and appointed somebody else. I said: “No, but I'm curious about why I was turned down by the White House.” Because to get somebody to take on that job, you know, wasn't easy. And if somebody was willing, what were the characteristics of the guy that made it necessary to say no.

He said he didn't know, but he thanked me for being a good sport, and was, as I say, very bitter about the fact that Nixon had turned him down. In the campaign of 1972 Nixon had wanted to get some air time for someone who was running for senator in the state of New York; and he wanted to get it the night before the elections, which meant a Monday night. He wanted to buy just the stations in New York--which meant that if we sold that, then we had nothing to offer the rest of the country; and I wouldn't do that--but if I could put that together with somebody else who wanted the rest of the country, we would do it.

A mutual friend, Don Kendall, who was then chairman of Pepsico, called me. He was very close to Nixon, and said that the President wanted to get this, but he didn't want to be involved in New York state politics. But he was anxious to see that this time for [James Lane] Buckley was available. I said to Don Kendall, “This isn't something that I would handle, and I would have to find out just what the opportunities were.”

Well, to make a long story short, I found a way to do what I described earlier of putting pieces together, and the 10 to 11 hour on the night before the election was made available. I don't know whether it was 10 to 11, or 8 to 9, or what it was; but a very choice piece of time was made available. When I told Kendall, he said: “Well, Dick is going to want to call and thank you for this.”