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I said: “No. I don't want him to call me, because I don't want any record that I was playing one side against the other. This was just a piece of business as far as I was concerned.” So that I didn't want him to thank me. Sometime, if we saw each other and he wanted to say he appreciated it, fine; but forget it--no reason to go out of his way to call me.

Don was a little hurt. He thought that I was being a little stuffy. He had no appreciation for the pressures under which I and others in broadcasting worked, when it came to political time.

Recalling that debt of gratitude, if you will, when I was told that I was not acceptable, [Q. laughs] I called Don Kendall and said: “Don, I want to tell you what just happened. Roland Harriman wanted me to take his place as head of Red Cross and everything was all set. He went to Nixon, and Nixon said he wouldn't have me.

Kendall said: “I don't believe it.” He said: “I know the President very well, and I know that he has great respect for you --even though you haven't always agreed on things and so forth. And he just wouldn't treat you that way. Let me find out what happened.”

I said: “Well, look. I'm not begging for the job. I just would like to know why I was turned down.”

He said: “I'll find out,” and I didn't hear anything from him for several weeks. Meantime, the drop-back position that Harriman had for someone else--the guy wouldn't take it. He had gotten something else that he wanted to do in his retirement, and so they were looking for somebody else.