Dear Jock: Last evening, Thursday, Helen Reid telephoned Mrs. Whitman to say that it was imperative that she, Helen, see me this morning. My morning was a high pressure one and I really had no time for a conversation, but she was so insistent that I agreed to the meeting.1 She has just left my office.
She seems to have two main worries:
a. She believes that an erroneous impression has been created, apparently by young Brown Reid, that he was not ready to step out of the Herald Tribune operation the instant that Mr. Hills could take charge. This, she thinks, is not the case. In Helen’s view Brown did nothing except express a willingness to stay on the job as long as Mr. Hills might want him--but this was to be understood as a voluntary act and Brown has never had any other thought except that of leaving the instant he would be relieved.2
b. She felt that I had never made clear to you my own conviction that the Herald Tribune has a great and valuable function to perform for the future of America.3 On this point I told her that you and I had often talked; that you knew of my feeling that I looked upon your proposed venture of taking over the Herald Tribune as a civic service of the highest order--one that I thought would bring a challenge and opportunity to you and would be of tremendous advantage to the cause of good government in the future.
I told Helen of my talk with you on Wednesday afternoon and I was very frank in telling her that your great concern sprang from the feeling on the part of Mr. Hills that he was not to have as free a hand as he had anticipated.4 I said that from my various conversations with you I felt that you believed the acquiring of Mr. Hills’ services and making certain that neither Brown nor any other official in the organization would interfere in its operations were two indispensable conditions of the deal if it was to be successful. I told her that you would probably not go ahead unless the man that you put in to run the paper would not only have your complete confidence but would have authority independent of any other person except yourself or your designated representative.
To all of this she agreed and professed herself as being nonplused by the road block that suddenly seemed to bar progress in the consummation of the deal. I told Helen, once more, that I did attach the most tremendous importance to the project and that I, of course, would be most happy to see it go through, provided that the conditions which you believed necessary would be completely fulfilled.
Finally, I told her that while you and I had talked on the telephone yesterday afternoon about 2:15, I did not know of the final outcome of your conversations in New York and I would not until you had had time to communicate with me. But she obviously attaches such tremendous importance to your taking over the Herald Tribune and is so confident of the complete readiness of the Reid family (especially Brown) to comply with the conditions you have laid down that she wanted me to reassure you on these points as well as of my own abiding interest.5
Give my love to Betsey and, as always, the best to yourself, As ever
