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Frank StantonFrank Stanton
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Session:         Page of 755

Now, some foundations that are private like that, or set up in that fashion, have special causes that they want to support. And in a sense, Bill's did too, because he was supporting his own museum out of that. He, I think, supported the Museum of Modern Art. His contributions and so forth came out of that. But it had no cause if you will.

Q:

Yes. I just ran across it on one of your resumes. So I was curious.

I'd like to go back to a little bit of what we discussed in our last session on several different items. And one that I found intriguing was when you were talking about Fred Borch coming to you -- I think it was in the late fifties or early sixties, something like that, and discussing a merger with GE.

Stanton:

It would have been an acquisition by G.E. It wasn't a merger.

Q:

An acquisition. Why didn't that deal go through? What was it about it that didn't work?

Stanton:

Well, the deal would have worked because it was a very straightforward acquisition. The real reason that it didn't go forward, I believe, is that after we discussed it with -- after I discussed it, at Paley's request, with certain members of the CBS board, we then took it to our key executives to see how they felt about it, and almost to a man they were opposed to it. That is, our internal officers. The board was relaxed about it. I think some members of the board were hesitant about it, others were favorable. I don't know of anybody on the board who opposed it in my conversations. I felt a little embarrassed in going to individual members of the board about it, because it seemed to me it was something that





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