We had an interesting thing at that first dinner. It was prior to the availability of several new hotels in Los Angeles, and we were more or less committed to the old Ambassador Hotel that has the famous Coconut Grove.
Lew Wasserman
To me, it's the White House and always will be.
I think the executives have matured enough so that they recognize that we have a two-party system. In California, we have more than a two-party system.
Well, it was a typical meeting with the President. He was very gracious, very outgoing.
I think that our primary concern is that the membership in our industry become active. I'm not talking about the candidates being active. I'm talking about the few hundred thousand people who work in the industry around the United States.
Things have changed a great deal since the days of Mr. Mayer. The studios no longer control, as they did in those days, artists or directors or producers, as the case may be.
You tend to meet on a more regular basis with people in your industry, and reality being what it is, you tend to meet with them at the particular level that you occupy; so that develops a fraternity relationship.
President Johnson offered the middle of the road.
That room was not available, and the only other room had been booked for a Jewish bar mitzvah. I called the father and told him I needed the room and I would pay him to move the bar mitzvah to an adjoining room which was smaller.
I believe Johnson understood that the reason was Vietnam. I also believe that he felt that if there was a way to communicate the real issues in Vietnam, that the reasons would be answered or understood. But there was just no way to communicate.
I was through as a manager. I did become involved late in the 1968 campaign at the national scene at the last minute. But I was through as a manager, and I've stayed through, incidentally.
Paul Newman's an old friend of ours out of Cleveland, Ohio. He used to sit around our house. He's the only man I've ever known to drink a case of beer all by himself. That's talent in a way.
