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Frank StantonFrank Stanton
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Session:         Page of 755

Stanton:

Yes, it did, to a certain extent. Frank White then moved into becoming head of the Columbia Records Division. Then went from that to becoming head of Mutual Broadcasting. Then went from Mutual Broadcasting to become president of NBC. He left the company. He was a late-comer to the company. He did not grow up in broadcasting. He grew up in publishing. He was, I think, chief financial officer of Newsweek at the time he joined CBS. Ream had been with the company as a lawyer and then as general consul. I made him executive vice president shortly after I became president. I needed somebody with whom I could counsel on problems who wouldn't talk. It's a lonely job to be running even that small company at that time.

If I can interrupt, I had absolutely no training in administration. I didn't know a balance sheet from a hole in the wall. I knew what operating figures were, and I had a rough idea of what a balance sheet was. But I'd never been trained in finance. I'd never been given any courses in business management in either college or after I was out of college, because my field of graduate study was in experimental psychology. God knows there was nothing there that trained me for running a broadcasting company.

Q:

I'm not so sure about that. [laughter]

Stanton:

I had to learn as I went along. I didn't know much about the Labor Relations Act. I probably suffered from what too many executives suffer from, and that is mini-management. I got into so many details. I spent too much time reading contracts, trying to get on top of things. Only because I was totally untrained and didn't know what to do about things. But Joe Ream was an enormous help to me. Joe had a fine mind, was a first-class lawyer. He had come out of the Cravath [Swaine and Moore] firm. He understood balance sheets,





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