THE POWER OF ONE: HOW A VICIOUS BIGOT UNINTENTIONALLY CONTRIBUTED TO EQUAL RIGHTS

　
　
　
　
　
　
　
     1968. What a year!
     The Detroit Tigers won the World Series (Honest!), Rod Laver won Wimbledon, the United States won the most gold medals at the Summer Olympics in Mexico. And the Beatles started Apple Records. Such are the memories of many. Memories of wins, memories of songs still sung and loved. Memories of glory.
     But I also remember 1968 as The Year of Hatred. And of terrible loss.
In January the Vietcong began the Tet offensive. Countless thousands died on both sides, proving we were in a full-blown war. The following month -- in our domestic war -- three college kids were killed during a civil rights protest in South Carolina; and student riots broke out all across the country. On March 31, Lyndon Johnson said he was finished with the presidency, paving the way for a man who personified hate: Richard Nixon.
     Then, less than a week later, national shame.
     Martin Luther King is assassinated. Two days after that, a shootout occurs in Oakland between the police and the Black Panthers. Three die, including a sixteen year-old boy It’s a precursor to another gun battle between black militants and police in Cleveland. There, ten are dead, including three cops; fifteen are wounded.
     April’s shame is followed by June’s calamity. .
     Bobby Kennedy -- campaigning in Los Angeles -- is also assassinated. The nation is thunderstruck; ripped apart by the Vietnam war on one hand and by violent civil rights battles on the other. Two of our most respected and dedicated leaders have been killed, and entire segments of society are grieving.
For the moment, hate seems to be gaining the upper hand in America.

     Early in the year, CBS called me about a documentary series it was going to broadcast prior to the Republican and Democratic nominating conventions. The seven-part series was titled ‘Of Black America’ and would begin with a one-hour program called ‘Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed”. The narrator would be the only black ever to star in a dramatic TV series (I Spy), the actor/comedian Bill Cosby. Subsequent programs would cover blacks in the military, in education, in entertainment, etc. Basically the project would be presented as a comprehensive survey of African-American life and culture.
     No-one had ever undertaken or even proposed such a bold and innovative idea. And given its scale and the volatility of the times, it was bound to create a ton of controversy and be seen as overtly supporting the civil rights movement.
     It was no surprise to CBS that its regular advertisers wanted no part of it. Toothpaste and toilet paper makers, beer companies and cupcake bakers, were not going to be ‘part of the solution’ as Eldridge Cleaver would write later that year. So half-apologetically, and with feeble hope of a favorable response, CBS asked me whether Xerox -- a young, fast-growing company known for not being afraid of controversial programming -- might be interested.
     Although -- like a majority of Americans -- I was never actively involved in protesting the war or in supporting the civil rights movement; ‘Of Black America’ seemed to awaken something in me. Suddenly I wanted to be involved and to involve Xerox as well. But I couldn’t see how.
     Most of the company’s annual TV budget had already been committed. And aside from the political implications and the budgetary problem, the marketing people would automatically reject anything broadcast during summer re-runs; not a prime period for leasing copiers. Then the Xerox PR people -- always skittish and overly cautious -- would surely find other reasons to reject it. So despite CBS dangling a significant discount if I could entice Xerox into sole sponsorship, I simply couldn’t persuade myself that the company could afford an investment at that level of risk and resistance.
     Then a new and very different possibility occurred to me. What if I could arrange dual sponsorship with an old-line conservative company like the Great Northern Railroad, United States Steel, or Standard Oil of New Jersey? What if we could align ourselves with the ghosts of the robber barons? That would be like saying all of American industry -- from one end to the other, new and old, basic and advanced -- endorsed the movement for equal rights. Xerox would sponsor half and the old-line company the other half. Together they would make a statement no-one could ignore and no-one would dare dispute. Or so I thought.
     I cautiously floated the idea with the new CEO of Xerox, Peter McColough, who -- aware that I was ignoring normal channels -- gave me a qualified go-ahead.
     I went to United States Steel first. I couldn’t get my foot in the door. Next I tried Ford Motor Company. Same story, but more polite. To say Pan Am and The Pennsylvania Railroad were uninterested would be an understatement.. But finally, through a friend, I got an appointment with Christian Herter Jr., Vice-President of Public Affairs for Mobil Oil Corporation which, originally, was Standard Oil Company of New York (Socony). Herter was a ‘Boston Brahmin’ of impeccable background: son of a Secretary of State, social lion, ex-legislator and long-time public servant; the kind of patrician whose trousers didn’t dare wrinkle when he sat down. I sensed I was dead the moment I began pitching him.
     But I hung in there, explaining the benefits that could accrue to Mobil, until he interrupted me:
     ‘I’m sorry.’ he said. ‘But we could never do anything like that.’
     ‘And why is that?’ I asked.
     He looked at me as if I were possibly of limited intelligence.
     ‘What if .. after the first Black America show .. somebody threw a brick through one of our service station windows?’
     I looked absently for a few seconds at photographs hung on the wall behind him. There were presidents and cabinet members, heads of state, Middle Eastern kings and princes, captains of industry. None of his family.
     Then I said: ‘What a great idea! Do you know anybody we can hire to do it?’
     With the most humorless thin-lipped smile I’d ever seen, he dismissed me.
     ‘Thank you for thinking of us.’ he said.
     In the end, the message was clear. No industrial giant and no consumer goods producer would go anywhere near ’Of Black America’. So I went back to McColough with my tail between my legs and told him I’d failed. He leaned back in his chair and put his forefingers to his lips, thinking it over.
     ’Well,’ he said. ’I guess we’ll have to go it alone.’
     Those few words guaranteed him my absolute loyalty until the day he retired fourteen years later.

     ‘Of Black America’ debuted -- with Xerox as sole sponsor -- on July 2, l968. If I remember correctly, several CBS affiliates in the South refused to broadcast it. Nonetheless, it was by documentary standards a great success. The critics were nearly unanimous in their praise; the overnight Neilsen ratings were good and its share of audience held steady throughout the hour.
     But I was deeply worried that the audience would slip away in the coming weeks. For one thing, the second program -- about black soldiers -- would be up against the Major League All-Star game on NBC. For another, the competition would surely start ‘stunting’ with special programs to shore up their own ratings. We needed something, anything, to draw more attention to the series after the first flurry of publicity.
     And it came, fortuitously, like a deus ex machina descending from the heavens
     The Xerox branch in Atlanta got a letter that said::

                                             Dear Sirs:
                                                    Due to your sponsorship of the Black America series,
                                                    we are cancelling our Xerox 813 machine effective immediately.
                                                                                                       Sincerely.
                                                                                                 

                                                                                                   Robert Shelton
                                                                                                   Grand Vizier
                                                                                                   Ku Klux Klan
   
      It was perfect: the Power of One. Better even than Christian Herter’s brick. I nearly fell out of my chair with gratitude. Copies were sent immediately to the Associated Press and to Reuters, and within hours the story was being distributed around the world. Every newspaper in the United States -- whether daily, weekly, tabloid or broadsheet -- published it; and every television news program -- whether VHF or UHF -- gave it prominent play. Columnists and commentators wrote about it and people from all walks of life -- in barber shops and diners, in four-star restaurants and expensive boutiques -- talked about it. In the following weeks, no matter what the competition threw at us, the ratings stayed high and the series remained powerful and persuasive.
      In sum, the KKK letter generated crateloads of newspaper clippings and TV transcripts. So when the series ended, I filled two large packing cases with press coverage of all kinds and prepared them for shipment. But rather than send them to the Grand Vizier, to whom we owed a perverse thanks, I sent them to Christian Herter, to whom we owed nothing.
     He never acknowledged their receipt.

     It’s odd how unpredictable life can be. Less than a year later, I was a television consultant to Mobil. A new management had taken over and Herter had left. His successor as V-P was Herb Schmertz who had helped manage the presidential campaigns of both Kennedys. Schmertz was young, bright, bold, and charismatic. (He was also Jewish; probably a first in the oil industry and certainly a first for an oil company with heavy Arab interests.) We took to each other instantly and within months Masterpiece Theatre, underwritten by Mobil, was in the final planning stage. (see my earlier blogs).
     In discussing its promotion possibilities. I happened to tell Schmertz about Christian Herter’s brick and the subsequent letter from the Ku Klux Klan.
     ‘Never underestimate the Power of One.’ I told him.
     ‘We should get so lucky with Masterpiece.’ he said, chuckling.
     And we did .. in a way.
     On the morning after Masterpiece Theatre‘s debut, I was in Schmertz’s office for an informal ‘post mortem’. We were reviewing overnight ratings, critics’ reactions, response from friends and colleagues, etc.
     Things looked very good, but the icing on the cake came from Mobil’s CEO, Raleigh Warner. That morning -- on his commuter train from Princeton, New Jersey -- a stranger had introduced himself and had enthusiastically complimented him for ’sponsoring’ Masterpiece Theatre. Then someone nearby -- who had overheard the conversation -- added his own compliments. Warner, both pleased and flattered, called Schmertz the moment he got to the office.
     ‘That’s the Power of One again.’ I said.
     ‘In this case .. two.’ Schmertz observed.
     ‘Yup .. and I’ll bet they were both well-dressed young executives.’
     ‘What else would they be on that train?’ he said.
     But when I was leaving, and halfway out of his office, he stopped me.
     ‘Wait a minute. Those guys weren’t actors, were they? I mean, you didn’t hire them to be on that train and …’
      I turned on him, looking hurt and putting my hand over my heart. I may even have fluttered my eyelashes. And with a word that would soon be made famous by a porcine princess on Sesame Street, I said:
     ‘Moi?’
     And left.
　
                                                                 AFTER DINNER MINTS
　
　
‘Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed’ won an Emmy for its writer, a relatively obscure staffer at CBS News named Andy Rooney. Yup, the same!

The Xerox ad agency created a wonderful photo image to advertise the series. It was a color close-up of clasped hands holding up a tiny American flag between the thumbs. The two hands were perfectly matched, but one was black and the other white.

In 1975, Xerox was forced by the Federal Trade Commission --in an anti-trust action -- to license its entire portfolio of patents to outsiders, principally the Japanese. Eventually, under the pressure of new competition, the company became just another industrial giant guided by unimaginative and uninspiring leadership. Sic transit gloria mundi.

‘Of Black America’ generated hundreds, perhaps thousands, of complementary letters addressed to the company. My favorite was also one sentence and came from somewhere in Alabama. Unlike the KKK letter, it was unsigned:
                               Dear Xerox,
                                       From one who is black and beautiful to
                               you who are white and beautiful .. Thank you.
　
Thank you also for reading this blog.

Until next month, I am No Nonsense at http://keywestwind.blogspot.com.