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So that's how I took the job. And if I did anything in those six years, I took the American Red Cross international. Harriman had not done much on the international side at all. We had paid our dues, which were substantial, but he didn't participate as a member of the executive board or as an officer of the international organization. I don't think he was ever there. I don't think he ever made the trip.

Are you talking about the International Committee?

No, the League of Red Cross Societies. He said: “Don't get mixed up with any of these damned foreigners.” He was very isolationist, when it came to thinking about the Red Cross. Why, I don't know. I never asked him about it.

But I got both staff people and board members to participate in the international aspects of the League. Forget the Swiss organization. I couldn't have done anything with that anyway.

So I was an international vice-president. I was a member of the executive council. George [McKee] Elsey, who was then president of the Red Cross, chief-of-staff, was the chief financial officer--non-executive officer--of the League of Red Cross Societies. I think it's fair to say we more than pulled our weight on the international scene.

The other thing I think I had a hand in cleaning up, to a certain extent, was the blood program. I was succeeded as chairman by Ambassador Brud [Jerome Heartwell] Holland, an Afro-American and a very strong Cornell graduate. A wonderful human being. I told Brud when he came in that one of the problems he had was the whole question of collecting blood.