Graydon On The Good Old Days
Graydon Carter remembers the late Time & Life editor-in-chief, Henry Grunwald:
Henry was the age I am now when I met him, but he seemed so much worldlier, like a nobleman with a foot still in the old century. Were you to pass him in the hallway as he glided by in his trademark shuffle and his starched shirt and gleaming shoes, the mildest "Good morning, Graydon" would make your heart jump.
Occasionally, he assembled a handful of the younger writers for lunch in one of the sleek private dining rooms on the 34th floor of the Time & Life Building. The meals would begin with prosciutto and melon. And in those days we drank at lunch. And smoked too, as I recall. Honored as you were to be there, you sensed an almost paralyzing fear, hovering over the meal, that Henry might ask your opinion on some aspect of foreign or domestic policy you knew absolutely nothing about.
As anyone who toils in the bowels Condé Nast, Hearst, Time, Inc. or any of this city's magazine publishers knows, it's still exactly like that.
