THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
Oral History Office
SUBJECT: San Antonio Since HemisFair
INTERVIEW WITH: Red McCombs
DATE: August 7, 1997
PLACE: Mr. McCombs's Office
INTERVIEWER: Sterlin Holmesly
TAPE I, Side 1
H: This is the second interview with Red McCombs, San Antonio automobile dealer, about HemisFair '68. It’s August 7, 1997. The interview is in Mr. McCombs's office. I'm Sterlin Holmesly.
M: In my role...this is Red McCombs, talking about HemisFair with Sterlin, on Thursday, August the 7th. I had an unusual role in HemisFair, in that I was head of the Chamber of Commerce here in '64 and '65. And during that time, of course, the talk of the fair had already started, and then we rolled into '66 and talk of the fair was even more and more. There were meetings being held and then, I guess, because of my role previously in the Chamber, I was put on the Executive Committee of the fair when that committee was formed. So that would be somewhere in the '66 range, and the planning was done and underway and a number of very significant things happened during the time that I was involved.
H: And that was looking to open the fair in '68.
M: Yeah. We were looking to open the fair in, in theRed McCombs 2
M: spring of '68, of course, which we did. But in the planning process, the Executive Committee, for two and a half to three years before the fair, met five or six days a week every morning at 7:30. So these became daily sessions and all, and each one of us had different areas that we were working in. And one of the things that I was asked to chair in representing the Executive Committee, I was asked to chair the committee on what would be the theme project of the fair. As we all know, it ultimately was the Tower of the Americas. But in the planning process, I had a very active committee - some people I had not worked with before, some investment bankers, really bright people. And in our planning process, one thing that we learned very quickly was that never in the history of the world had a tower been built that was not an economic success. So I was not charged with recommending a project that would be an economic success. But I guess it was just sort of a part of my nature that if we could come off with the project that I'd like to recommend, something that would be an economic success...
H: That would pay for itself.
M: That would pay for itself and would be financible. So as we began to study, we settled on the Tower, looking at a number of other different type projects and such. A person from the side, as it were, who was not on our committee, but was well aware of the committee and well aware of our work, Red McCombs 3
M: was the architect, O'Neil Ford. O'Neil was a close personal friend as well as, of course, being one of the premiere architects, not only in San Antonio but in his time. So O'Neil and I were social buddies as well as having done some business together and particularly enjoyed drinking together. And O'Neil was really pressing me to "Let's do a tower," because he wanted to make a statement in concrete. He had this theory that nowhere in the U. S. had anyone ever really done with cement or concrete all that could be done. And it was such a great source and that people in Mexico knew so much more about it than in the U. S., but he really wanted to do a huge shaft of concrete with his little doughnut on top, as he called it, which ultimately happened. But in the planning process, it also became very obvious to me that Mr. Pat Zachry, who also was on the Executive Committee, and indeed an officer of the fair and a man whom I respected as much and personally liked as much or more than anyone that I ever met in my life, was beginning to tell me privately, "I certainly hope you come up with something other than a tower that I keep hearing about because a tower is ugly - a tower really says nothing, and a tower would be like a 'me too' project because Seattle had a tower as a focal point."
H: Let me just point out that Pat Zachry was H. B. Zachry, the Chief Executive of H. B. Zachry and Company.
M: Right. Right. So, any rate, it was obvious we were Red McCombs 4
headed toward recommending a tower. And about two weeks M: before our deadline, I met privately with Mr. Zachry and told him where we were headed. And he was very, very outspoken in his soft, beautiful way, but outspoken very strongly in, "Red, please, there has to be something that would be a better alternative than that." And so I suggested to him that, just privately between him and myself, we had about two weeks left. If he could put his staff together and come up with something that maybe I could recommend to my committee, other than a tower, that I certainly would look at it. And he had his staff work out two or three alternatives. One was something that was similar to the Tivoli Gardens - a couple or three nice, beautiful, aesthetic kind of projects, but they were costly, certainly not...would not pay for themselves, although they would have been beautiful within the fair. And I just, you know, laterally, indicated to Mr. Zachry that I was not going to recommend any of those to our committee and that the following week we would recommend the tower to the Executive Committee, which I felt like I would be tantamount to that being the project, and being the theme project. So at the Executive Committee meeting, I gave the report, recommended that the tower be built. Mr. Zachry made a very eloquent pitch against the tower for all the reasons I've already mentioned. And then, as I recall, the vote was like 10 or 11 to 1. He was the only dissenter. But after Red McCombs 5
the vote was taken, then being the gentleman that he was, he rose to his feet and said, "Although I object to this so M: strenuously, I will never publicly make a statement against the tower, and I understand majority rules and so good luck." So that was a little interesting background in the - in the by-play of how things happened.
H: Okay. So they built the tower. Do you remember how much it cost?
M: I don't remember what it cost, but I do know that we issued twenty year revenue bonds. They were not...it never cost the taxpayers a nickel. And I know that the revenue sources to the city were greater than what the bonds were, and the bonds were paid off in advance as I recall. We burned the bonds in about eighteen years with a little ceremony at the base of the tower. So the tower was a - a project that paid for itself, never cost the taxpayers a nickel, and, of course, still today stands as, as a symbol of San Antonio.
H: And it's still generating revenue.
M: And it's still generating revenue.
H: Let's talk about the Industrial Pavilions. There was a large problem there.
M: Yeah. One of the biggest problems that we faced in the fair, although there were many, many problems, and I want to say that - that I can't say that this was the biggest problem, but this certainly was one of the biggest problems.Red McCombs 6
As a World's Fair, we were operating under a charter, as it were, from the Bureau of International Expositions, headquartered in Paris. And under that charter as a certain class World's Fair, we had certain requirements that we had McCOMBS
to meet. And one of those requirements was some twenty odd freestanding, industrial exhibits that would be in buildings that would have to be land leased from the fair corporation. And then the Fortune 500 - type company would have to build a building and then put a theme in that building that would be compatible to the theme of the fair and then staff that building for a period of six months. So, obviously, this was a very expensive expenditure. Our basic professional staff were people who were in that business, and most of them had been involved at the Seattle World Fair, which was a success. And there was some core of 8 to 10 or 12 of these people that were very talented and were certainly a resource to us. And they had been telling us for some time that they were having a very difficult time meeting this particular requirement. So we came up against a time line problem meaning that we were about to run out of time to get this done, and we had one of our very many special-call emergency meetings where Governor John Connally was called to come down from Austin. And I want to make the comment here that, in my judgement, notwithstanding all the great work that was done by so many people in seeing that the fairRed McCombs 7
was conceived, and it was built, and that it had a successful conclusion, and many, many people involved, particularly as already mentioned Marshall Steves and the Bill Sinkins, and many, many others. But in my personal judgement, the person who had the most influence that McCombs 7 absolutely was critical to the times that we had problems, that we could not solve otherwise, was Governor John Connally. And John was called on this situation and in the discussion it was, you know, what do we do about it?
H: And then where were you in time?
M: In time, we were about a year and a half before the fair opened.
H: So you were about 1966.
M: So we were about to run out of time for...to get a prospect to come in, and build a building, and put a project in it and open the fair. We had gotten three of these twenty-odd commitments right off and, as I recall, they were Southwestern Bell, General Electric, and IBM. Jim Gaines, who was, who was one of the absolute leaders of the fair, and, and, and the first, I guess, General Manager of the fair in the executive position, had a G. E. contact. Southwestern Bell was well represented here, and they came on right immediately. And then we had a very strong presence at that time with IBM with a local manager here whoRed McCombs 8
delivered IBM. But once we got those three, we went for like a year without getting any others. So we were nearing the end of the time, and we, we couldn't even qualify to be a World's Fair.
H: You needed at least 17 more.
M: At least. As I recall we had to have, we had to have a minimum of 23 to 26, but somewhere over 20.
H: Yeah.
M: And we had three, so we had...we were way deep in the ditch. Big time. At this session, the issue was reviewed and Governor Connally asked if I would take as a special assignment to visit with the staff, and we'd get back together in two or three days and see if we could come up with some solutions to this problem. I would have done anything that John Connally asked me to do, ever. But in the day that I spent going over the staff's files and working with the staff, I could not see anything that any prudent person could have done that they had not already done. The bottom line was that they didn't have access, because the major corporations in the U. S., in 1966, thought of San Antonio as being something maybe like Laredo or maybe like Abilene, Texas.
H: A dusty little town.
M: But there absolutely was no interest. And they could not develop the interest. And as I went through the files, and read the reports, and saw the replies and conferences Red McCombs 9
and such, it was very disheartening to me. Now, during that same time, I personally had been unsuccessful, because I personally had the assignment to deliver Ford Motor Company. And I had a very close relationship with Lee Iacocca, that had been established in the '50s, early on in his career and my career. And here we are up in the 1966, and Lee was President of Ford Motor Company and Member of the Board, and I had pitched him and pitched him, and he was telling me that the company wasn't going to go for it. And we were beginning to get into the situation of having cuss fights over the phone and, indeed, also in visits to Detroit. But while I had this assignment and had not yet responded back to Governor Connally, but had met with the staff, that same afternoon, as ironic as it would seem, I get a call from Iacocca in Detroit. And in essence he said, using his typical salty, four-letter language, I don't want any argument about this. I don't want any back-talk. I don't want any conversation. Here's what's going to happen. We are not going to build a building - period. It's over. It's not going to go any further. Governor Connally is going to get a call from Mr. Ford's office, and Mr. Ford is going to tell him he's going to send a personal emissary down with a check for $250,000 for the Governor to buy an art object of his choosing, and that will be Ford Motor Company's gift for the fair. Upon hearing this, I immediately started cursing Iacocca; that we didn't want theRed McCombs 10
$250,000. We had plenty of art gifts. We had to have the building and the pavilion, and he and I are having a cuss fight over the phone when the magic, magic phrase appeared and his response was "Red, I'm not going to talk about it anymore. I know you're caught up in that dusty, damn little ol' town down there that you think is so world class, but in, in the scope of things, there is no political or economic significance to the Ford Motor Company in that Fair McCombs in San Antonio, Texas." And suddenly a light came on, and I said, "Good bye." He said, "Good bye." And I don't know who hung up on each other first. I immediately called Governor Connally, and I said, "Guess what? We've been trying to sell this thing when when the dogs don't like the dog food." I said...I repeated the conversation that I had with Iacocca. He said, "Well, well, well. Well, that's just what we'll do." He said, you call Iacocca back and tell him not to worry about that anymore that I'll call Lyndon, and Lyndon will within 24 hours tell Mr. Ford the political significance of that dusty little town, San Antonio, Texas. And he chuckled. I was delighted. I called Iacocca. And when I called Iacocca's secretary, whom I've known for years, said, "Red, I'm sorry, but I'm just going to tell you he does not want to talk to you." And I knew that was probably going to happen. So I knew I had to have a story for her, so I told her I understand that and Red McCombs 11
I've been out of line. And I could understand why he's come to that conclusion, but I called to apologize to him. I have been wrong. Just hook me up to him and let me just apologize to him and put our friendship back in place. And she said, "Oh, Red, that is so nice. I'll get him right on the phone." So Iacocca comes on the phone, and I apologize profusely, and - and he, he took the bait really big, and he said, "Well, you know, you just pushed too hard. You got out of line and blah, blah, blah," and I said, "But the big thing is, Lee, is that there is a successful conclusion here." I said, "You and I don't have to worry about this. We're out of it," and I said, "I called Governor Connally and told him that you had said that this has no political or economic significance for the Ford Motor Company. And he said for me not to bother with this anymore and let you know for you not to bother with it, because he would have Lyndon call Henry within 24 hours and explain the political significance of this. Well, Iacocca was stunned, and he said, "Oh, you're BSing me. You're pulling my chain." And I said, "No, let's don't even worry about it. You and I we don't have to...we're not concerned about this anymore, and then he started backing up a little, and he said, "Well, look, you know, you really, if you're really telling me the truth here," he said, "I worked on this so hard for a year and a half. Let me go tell Henry that the President is going to call him." So that was the way that ended, and we Red McCombs 12
found out that - that we were not going to be able to sell those Fortune 500 companies based upon the Fair itself, and...
H: ... or on the economic interest.
M: ... Or on the economic interest and, thank God, for John Connally and his relationship with - with President Johnson that we opened the Fair with every one of the exhibits that we needed, and Mr. Henry Ford came down himself, spent two days, made great speeches about the significance of San Antonio to Ford Motor Company, and a great day was had by McCombs all.
H: Well, did that break the ice when, when Ford signed up and the others ...(inaudible)...
M: Well, it didn't only break the ice, of course, then they realized what it was going to take. So then Governor Connally, and with President Johnson, they began making the calls and that, that problem was over.
H: The President explained the situation to all these potential exhibitors, and they saw the light.
M: That is correct. As only EN and Governor Connally...Governor Connally was just, just the most effective leader that you could ever possibly want to work with.
H: Do you remember how many pavilions you opened with?
M: It was either 23 or 26. Whatever the requirement was.Red McCombs 13
H: You did qualify.
M: We did qualify with no problem. And the people and the CEOs of those corporations all came to San Antonio and said real good and nice things. And, you know, the people going to the Fair and enjoying the Fair never really realized what had happened. But it was absolutely a very, very necessary and significant part of the Fair. But that was not the only role that Governor Connally played. The role that has been reported, somewhat, but with the requirement of our Fair that we had to have state participation, which ended up in being the Institute of Texan Cultures, to get through the legislature. Then we had to have federal participation, or we could not have gotten the international participation. If we don't get the U. S. to participate, we certainly are not going to get the foreign governments to participate. Having said that, the fact that - that Governor Connally and Senator Ralph Yarborough not only disliked each other, but really, seriously disliked each other, made it a situation to where it took all of - all of - all of the finesse that there was. In my opinion, no one with any less talent than Governor Connally could ever have pulled all that off.
H: Well, in those days, the Republican Party didn't exist in Texas, and there were conservative Democrats and liberal Democrats and Connally was conservative and Yarborough was liberal.
M: Right.Red McCombs 14
H: And they were totally opposite poles.
M: Totally opposite poles. And on the other hand, President Johnson had to have his relationship with Senator Yarborough, although, as everyone knew, Governor Connally was, was if not his closest, one of his closest advisers all of his life. But Governor Connally had that ability to cut through and create things, even with all of these obstacles. I don't believe anyone else in that role could have done it.
H: So we wound up with state participation. Two federal buildings, as I recall.
M: Correct.
H: And the Institute of Texan Cultures is still going strong after almost 30 years.
M: It's a landmark to San Antonio. It is a component of the University of Texas, funded and - and kept up by the University of Texas. A lot of our citizens are not aware of that, but it is a great contribution from the University of Texas system to San Antonio, and a continuing one, as has been the use of the federal buildings by the federal government after the Fair.
H: Well, do you think that, in part, the Institute of Texan Cultures resulted from John Connally's interest in education, particularly higher education? He changed the whole scenery in Texas on that.
M: Well, there's no question. He is the father of modern Red McCombs 15
higher education in Texas - period, paragraph. That's it! That's why he came back from Washington to run. I could make a comment on that whether it fits in here or not but...
H: Go right ahead.
M: I was one of, say, a hundred plus people invited up to Austin in 1962 when John Connally had come back from Washington to announce that he was going to run for Governor of Texas. And he told us that night in a crowd that he had – like - 3 or 4 percent name identification. And the reason that he was coming back to do this was because he had seen tens of millions of dollars leave Washington going to the east coast and the west coast because of the brain power in the east coast and the west McCombs coast. And his comment at the time was that "if we don't improve higher education in Texas," and keep in mind this was 1962, "if we don't improve higher education in Texas, in 30 years we're going to look like Mississippi." I was one of the few, if not the only one, that took objection to that just simply from, in my opinion, that a realistic assessment was that if he had to spend all his time getting name identification, and all of us who were there wanted him to be the Governor, I thought he had...he needed to take a different issue, and then use the education issue once he was elected. Because I wasn't aware that we were that far behind in our education, and I just figured that if I was Red McCombs 16
not that aware, how many Texans would be that aware of that. So I expressed my views to the Governor that night in that session, but he indicated that he would overcome that, and the people of Texas would respond.
H: And he resigned as Navy Secretary. He was President Kennedy's Navy Secretary, was he not?
M: I don't know what he was in Washington. You know, he had several high roles in Washington, and what he had seen was these contracts, as he said, that would go out to the universities in the Boston area and the universities in the San Francisco area. And he would see these, these millions of dollars go out for research projects, and these research projects would end up in being industries with a lot of jobs. And so, thank God, he was not only there to recognize McCombs that, but he came back and fixed it. I think that - that you could readily see that, that in these two issues that I discussed here specifically, and then the issues of federal pavilions and state pavilions, that it, that it required an awful lot of decision making and management, just on the staff of the Fair, to be prepared to do this Fair. And the staff, essentially, the core of the staff was hired out of the professionals, as I have already mentioned, that had done other fairs, including Seattle. But we had to have someone locally that could pull these divergent opinions, and all these areas that none of us knew anything about, Red McCombs 17
together. And Frank Manupelli and Jim Gaines were heading up that staff. And Jim not only became ill, but also he had some problems with some of the other leadership of the Fair, and really didn't, didn't get to use all of, all of his management ability. But I watched Frank Manupelli from a day to day staff standpoint of working through all these problems as a paid head of staff and determining who would do what, and where he was going to go and such, is just one little illustration. Angelo Drossos (sp) and I were the very closest of friends, and Angelo had a couple of Coney Island hotdog stands in downtown San Antonio that he had inherited from his father. So Angelo tells me early on, when we're planning on the Fair, that what we've got to do is get the hot dog concession. Well, I had a conflict of interest.
H: Sure.
M: Because here I am on the Executive Committee but, at that time, I didn't really understand conflict of interest too well, so I go busting in to Manupelli and the other staff people and say, "I want to bid on a concession for hot dog stands with Angelo Drossos (sp) and a group of investors." And I don't recall who all we had, but I know we had Norman Harwell (sp) and Curtis Vaughn (sp) and six or seven others, and all Angelos's idea. Angelo's idea was that was that we would have the hot dog concessions at the Fair. Well, Manupelli in a very nice, but straightforward way said, "You know, Red, you can't be involved in this at Red McCombs 18
all." So I kept pushing, and this issue was hanging on, and one day, Manupelli said, "You know, we've got a big problem here that we can't resolve at the moment." He said, "We must have a western type saloon-type place built to where there is a stage show, sort of an old western saloon stage show, etc.," and he said, "We haven't been able to get anybody to agree to do that." He said, "If you'll talk to Angelo and your crowd," he said, "I might give you a half dozen or so of those hot dog stands, if you guys would agree to build this," what turned out to be the Golden Garter. Which turned out to be the watering hole of the Fair, but it was a pretty big place. I don't remember how many it seated, but we had a stage for a show every night. It was, it was quite an expensive undertaking, and so I took that idea back to Angelo and he said, "I don't think we can make enough off those hot dogs to pay for the loss on that damn McCombs thing." So we began working on it and, finally, the group decided that we would go ahead and do it, and we were just holding our nose about the loss we were going to take on the Golden Garter, but we were going to reap all this money from these hot dogs. Well, as our business expertise turned to be exactly backwards. Those hotdog stands never did even pay for themselves, for reasons I don't know.
H: Because you had all the foreign food ...
M: I guess so, but the hot dogs were really a dead loser. Red McCombs 19
We ended up closing half of them. And that loser that we thought was going to be the Golden Garter ended up to be a gold mine. And that thing just coined money day and night. So, you know, so much for all this great business expertise.
H: So much for your entrepreneur's intuition, huh?
M: Right.
H: [laughter]. Okay. That's great. Thank you, Red.
END OF SIDE I, TAPE I