Session: 1234567891011121314151617         Page 12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546 of 755

wrote somebody at NBC at the same time. And said, “This is what I'm interested in doing.” And would they be interested in underwriting the equipment. Because I had to have -- I think my ambition was to have a hundred of these little recorders that I could put in various places. And they weren't cheap to make and I needed help. So I wrote NBC and wrote CBS. I've forgotten who I wrote at NBC. I've still got their letter, I think.

Anyway, I got a two-paragraph, beautifully typed, engraved letterhead, pat on the top of my head response from NBC saying, “This is interesting and if you ever get any results let us know.” Or something. It was just nothing. Very polite. And very prompt. And I didn't hear anything from CBS. Weeks went by. And then one day I got, I think, a three-page letter, on a Monarch-sized letterhead, typed as though it was typed by the man who signed the letter. It went off the page and went below the page. There were cross-outs. You haven't ever seen reporters' copy that was as poorly typed as this one. But it wasn't the typing that counted. It was what he said. He said, “We're not only interested in what you're doing, but we've got some questions of our own on research. Keep in touch with us.” I think he suggested that they might want to meet with me. This was like giving a bear raw meat -- the idea that they were going to even see me.

And then following that I think they did respond and I think they made a contribution of a hundred dollars toward some mimeographing work I had to do, some pretesting, and the correspondence kept up. And at one point [Paul] Kesten said, “Why don't you come over? We'd like to see you.”

This was around 1933.