Word: sarnoffs
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Washington a citizens' commission headed by RCA's Board Chairman David Sarnoff let fly last week with a roundhouse punch at the U.S. military establishment. In a report to Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson, the Sarnoff Commission (formal title: the Citizens Advisory Commission on Manpower Utilization in the Armed Services) recommended "an overall reduction of at least 10% in men, money and matériel . . . in the operations of the Department of Defense." Such a cut, said the commission, "can be achieved . . . without diminishing the required combat effectiveness of our armed forces," and "would mean possible savings...
...Pentagon Jungle." The Sarnoff Commission's recommendations were the outcome of four months of bitter experience in what the report called "the Pentagon jungle." Established by Harry Truman's Defense Secretary Robert Abercrombie Lovett last October, the commission soon reached the conclusion that the armed services were trying to smother it with irrelevant data. Said Sarnoff: "The commission has received tons of information and not an ounce of interpretation . . . Cooperation from the services boils down to furnishing the commission with voluminous, lengthy and complicated documents . . . which leave the reader with a greater sense of bewilderment than...
Much of the time Sarnoff carried on the commission's work almost singlehanded. Some of the other commissioners did not come to any meetings. In late December, a little more than a month after the commission had begun work, one of its eleven members,* Businessman Robert W. Johnson, board chairman of Johnson & Johnson (surgical dressings, baby products), resigned because his health would not stand the strain. Included in the commission's final report last week was Johnson's parting shot-a memo in which he rated the services "in terms of cooperation toward manpower savings." His ratings...
...Adler who first brought the idea of brief operatic works in English to NBC's music chief, Samuel Chotzinoff. Scholarly "Chotzy" liked the idea. One day Chotzy buttonholed RCA Board Chairman David Sarnoff: "General, I want you to hear some music." "The general was very annoyed," Adler recalls. "But anyway, I brought in some singers and they sang a scene from La Bohème, in English of course. In three minutes the general was in tears. He said, 'Could that be done on television?' " Chotzinoff andAdler assured him that it could, quickly blueprinted plans...
Last week White, 53, got his biggest assignment. He was named president of NBC, succeeding Joseph H. McConnell, 46, who resigned, reportedly to be president of Colgate-Palmolive-Peet. White thus became the first man ever to have headed two major networks. Radiomen guessed that RCA-NBC Chairman David Sarnoff is not completely satisfied with NBC's bulky overhead and slowness to fight back against CBS competition, and hopes that White will tune NBC into a better wave length...