ABSTRACT
ANOTHER event that has been fogged by false rumors and inaccurate stories, some innocent, others inspired, was my leaving Rutgers in 1978. A couple of years before then, knowing that I would be reaching retirement in 1978, I began to talk to several people about the magazine and my staying on. I talked first with Richard Poirier, whose goodwill I never questioned, and who had the ear of the administration. (Poirier had resigned from the magazine in 1971, saying he needed to have more time to write.) He got in touch with Henry Winkler, acting vice-president (Edward Bloustein was on leave), who said he thought arrangements could be made. Things dragged until the spring of 1977 when Robert Montgomery, our attorney, and I met with Paul Pearson, the new acting president, and Kenneth Wheeler, the provost. As I recall, Clyde Szuch, an attorney for Rutgers, was also present. I particularly remember the meeting, as Bob Montgomery drove us to Rutgers, and I was so busy talking that we missed our exit and found ourselves at Trenton. I remember also that the Rutgers people were strangely noncommittal. They asked me about my intentions, to which I said that I would like to stay at 282Rutgers, and that when I was ready to give up both teaching and the magazine, I would be disposed to leave the magazine to Rutgers, perhaps with a designated committee taking over. They said there was one hitch: the board of governors would have to approve, but they were hesitant to bring it up before them, as that would reveal how much money had been spent on the magazine. The implication was that the sum had been kept secret from them. At the time, this consideration seemed strange. But later it seemed even stranger, as we discovered that a secret analysis of the costs of the magazine had been made on orders of Provost Wheeler. (The figures were used at the subsequent trial.)
