TO: Williston Reed
FROM: John Harrison
RE: Current memo series
As you know, I'm keeping you up to date whenever I have a minute between appointments: a publicity chief ought to know everything, inside as well as public-issue material, if only so he can be conscious of what to hide. I've tried to work with you as well as I can, and if there are delays in reporting, you'll understand that pressure of other duties....
... The story behind all of this is simple enough. The takeover Gogarty and Ramsbotham have been trying to pull is interfering with practical business. Frankly, AMP'S competitors are happy enough to jump in and stir the pot: I think they've been buying up Senators here and there (for which there is, God knows, enough precedent; the entire Senate hasn't been bought since the Dedrick mutiny forty years back but you don't need the entire Senate if you have a few key men, and I've always thought Dedrick's lawyers were wasteful), and beyond what the competition's been active in, there are always the fanatics. Freedom for all—you know the sort of thing.
Now the big danger is that if R. and G. succeed in keeping things messed up the rest of the metals boys will step in, push the government into the right moves, and kill Fruyling's World deader than Dedrick himself. Which (according to the statistical breakdown) won't put us into the bankruptcy courts, but will slide us from a first-or-second spot to a ninth-or-tenth one. The big question is whether you'd rather be a small frog in a big puddle or the reverse. Me, I'd rather be a big frog in a big puddle than any other combination I can think of, and in spite of everything I think I'm going to go on being just that.
Fruyling's World has been around for a long time, but the current AMP fight gives the competition the opportunity they need, and they're pushing it. If we can weather the storm....
Well, I'm being gloomy. Of course we can weather the storm. I'll swing Gogarty back, and that will leave Ramsbotham nowhere to go....
TO: John Harrison