Cass Canfield Sr.

It had been picked for publication by a very old man, Cass Canfield, who was a famous senior editor at Harper & Row, and he was already on his was out.The book attracted his attention.But other people at the company were not much interested in books that he found.He had had his day in a certain way.

Michael Bessie began his career in publishing in 1946, when Cass Canfield, then head of the house, invited him to join Harper and Bros. as an editor.
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One of my colleagues, indeed my boss, was on temporary embassy service: Cass Canfield, who had suddenly during the war become the head of the house of Harper and also one of its principal owners.He asked me what I was going to do after the war.I told him I was planning to go back to Cowles's newspapers, whence I had come.He said, "Well, what about book publishing?What about coming to Harper?"I said, "Cass, two days after I graduated from Harvard, I went to Harper to try to get a job, and I was unceremoniously shown the door.
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I was invited because, at the age of 29, I had had ten years of journalism in various forms; I had also worked in the movies; I knew a hell of a lot of people; I talked a lot, had a lot of good connections among journalists and academics, etc.; and, in a word, because Cass Canfield said to me one day, "I think you would make a good publisher."And he was right: it was good for me.

Now: how important was the fact that I had a good degree from Harvard, that I knew some of the right people, that I even belonged to one of the right clubs?In those days that was not without significance.I do remember one delicious example.I had been at Atheneum for about a dozen years or so, when the leadership back at Harper was changing, and all of a sudden there was a new guy there, in succession to Canfield.His name was Winthrop Knowlton.I was having lunch with Cass one day and I said, "Cass, how did you find Knowlton?"Knowlton had worked for the Treasury in Washington, and on Wall Street.Cass said, "Well, it's a funny story, you know.
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McNAMARA: You said, for example, that Cass Canfield had bought into Harper.
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Every book I published at Harper had Cass Canfield or somebody else as the ultimate authority.I had to get his agreement, his approval.It wasn't difficult.There were a certain number of things under those circumstances that he would just say yes to, because I put it to him strongly.When he was dubious about it, he would say, "Would you be really miserable if we don't publish this?"Talk about collegiality: that was his way of running the place.
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Pat [Knopf -- Alfred A. Knopf, Jr.] always had his parents, and I always had Cass Canfield or somebody else.

This misapprehension I owe to Cass Canfield Sr., Harper's president, who named the book and in so doing misrepresented my thoughts.

The CIA dispatched one of its top officials, Cord Meyer Jr., to visit his old social friend, Cass Canfield Sr., Harper's owner.