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1 X Interviewer: Walter Elijah Campbell Interviewee: Daniel David Cameron Mono No. of sides: 2 No. of tapes: 1 Tape No DC Location: Dan Cameron's office: The Cameron Company, 1201 Glen Meade Rd. Wilmington, NC Counter No... Topic TAPE INDEX 002 Opening announcement 018 Education in Wilmington; VMI, ; into Armed Services; four years in service; emerged with the rank of Major. 044 Why he went to VMI: My Daddy sent me there; never have regretted going to VMI; Bronze Star in WWII; Anti-Aircraft artillery; went back to Normandy on 49th anniversary, last year, for two weeks; visited old spots, cemetary at Omaha Beach 090 Watching aerial bombardment outside St.- Lo. when received word from Red Cross that father had died; did not get home until November After the war; taking up father's business and working with brother, Bruce; men who had been with father decided to pursue other opportunities: Gardner Greer, Burt Jewel, Theodore Sellers, leaving a void in the business; working at MacMillan & Company before the war 154 Retail business: Good Year type store, tires, repairs, large service station; gasoline business: distributorship; wholesale automobile business; goes into gasoline business first, then to retail business after Greer leaves; Bruce reorganized wholesale business; learning the oil business: deliverying fuel, home fuel delivery service 197 Origins of WRAM, first radio station in Wilmington; mother owned 40%, the other 60% owned by Mr. Dunlea, a former Coast Guard man who persuaded BBC Sr. to start a station; Dunlea ran business at first

2 Daniel David Cameron, Tape No DC page 2 of Camerons begin branching out: trying to get merchandise into stores, became appliance dealers, a bigger part of business than automotive services; remodeled and expanded service station business; expanded whole automotive sales business Radio Company applies for TV franchise; orginally DC and BBC Jr. were on the board of the TV company but were not active in its management; the Dunleas ran the business; license was easy to get; Dunlea's sucessful background in radio made it fairly easy to get the license; lot of trouble getting the money together to get station on the air; started with meagre facilities; started out with NBC 253 Dunleas ran the TV station, but it did poorly; 1957, Camerons made buy-or-sell agreement with Dunleas, because they thought the TV station could be more efficiently run; Camerons believed the Dunleas would buy; but Dunleas elected to sell; in the meantime, there had been two other applications for TV stations in Wilmington, and DC went to both of those groups and showed them that TV station was losing and suggested sharing investment rather than competing; MacMillan & Company ends up owning 30% of the TV business, the Greenville Television Station, WNCT, ended up owning 30%, and the Brody family in Kinston, ended up owning 30%, and Mr. J. W. Jackson, Budweiser, Pepsi distributor ended up with 10% 280 Greenville station would send people down to more or less take over the management of WECT, the Wilmington station; DC made president of group to hold it together for reorganization; DC quickly turned the station into a moneymaker; stayed as manager, spent most time there; went from losing $50 thousand to making $50 thousand within a year; $100 thousand put into recapitalization to pay off debts to New York film companies; problem with company was income: no advertising 308 DCs advertising plans are successful; Fred Willits, Cooperative Savings and Loan, agrees to buy some advertising, as does his competitor, Mr. Fonville, at the Carolina Savings & Loan; then DC goes to Mr. Jackson, who buys same package--$45 thousand in one day; Wholesome Bread buys the next day; Coca Cola sees Pepsi and wants to advertise, and things begin to move; MacMillan & Company sold the antennas, TVs, poles, etc.; no real major advertisers before this, except for MacMillan & Company

3 Daniel David Cameron, Tape No DC, page 3 of Going into politics; father had been popular; people urged DC to take up where father left off; city and county taxes coordinated to eliminate city residents paying double burden for taxes; instrumental in getting Committee of 100 established; formed one year before ACL RR announced it would leave Wilmington; everybody wanted the mayor to do something about ACL RR leaving; talking to Champ Davis, asking him to keep ACL RR in city; Davis said decision could not be reversed; DC considers Davis an old son of a bitch; DCs father-in-law, Mr. W. H. Henderson, worked for ACL for fifty years 433 Shipbuilding's importance during the war; losing the industry after the war; Wilmington was a poor place 441 Origins of Cmmt. of 100; Tidewater Power Company; Al Jones, vp of Carolina Power & Light, for Wilmington area; DC and Jones discussed how to help Wilmington; Jones suggested concentrating industrial recruitment and development; Jones first chairman, DC first vice chairman; still in existence; very successful over time; people went along with effort because Wilmington was desperate; DC stayed as vice chairman for 14 years; 100 people to put up $1000; first director was Harry Clarke; financing of local buildings 495 Recruiting businesses for Wilmington in the late 1960s; Hugh Branch, from Petersburg, Virginia, helps recruit; Branch's qualifications; DuPont was first to come; had to sell businesses on the community: ocean, fishing, liveability; Hercules Chemical; State of NC provided 100 with most of its leads: Grace Chemical, Diamond Shamrock, Ideal Cement, Corning Glass; GE inspector retired in Wilmington, so did Corning executive; no financial incentives, such as taxes, to move big businesses here; Branch helps them find property, etc., and tax rates were low, but liveability was major drawing card; comments on Landfall 552 DC in the 1950s; concentrating on Cmmt. of 100; TV business doing very well; J.B. Fuqua calls DC to say he is DCs new partner, having bought Greenville station; the following week, however, Mr. Roy Park, calls DC, saying he had gotten Greenville station from Fuqua; Roy Park becomes DCs partner, puts together huge media empire, recently sold for $7-800 million; Greenville station's origins

4 Daniel David Cameron, Tape No DC, page 4 of Profits from TV prompt owners to look for something else; DC on minerals board, appointed by Terry Sanford; Skipper Bowles tells DC about going into germ-free hog business; pig palaces; SIDE B. 007 DC asks TV board about investing in pig proposition; J. W. Jackson says buy Pepsi Cola franchise instead; TV station, Atlantic Telecasting Corporation, buys Jackson's bottling business for $1.3 million; Camerons get permission from Pepsi in Charlotte; struggled with business for awhile to get it prosperous 061 Pepsi district manager in Charlotte calls DC regarding Pepsi franchises and companies for sale in South Carolina; Columbia plant had recently been site of union organizing drive; sale of Wilmington Pepsi provides some capital for plants in Columbia, SC; money borrowed in SC; Brody was to run the plants; never sign contract with union, which hangs around for a year and decides not to try to organize 119 This was a period when Pepsi Cola distributors were struggling, in the late 40s and early 50s; DC recounts Jackson's story about Alfred Steel coming in to take over Pepsi in 1949; called all Pepsi dealers to Atlantic City, NJ, said if you'll do what I tell you to do you will all be millionaires; businesses built up over 50s and 60s, and owners were old and wanted out, so Camerons hit that market just right; buys Augusta, Georgia, Pepsi franchise, then Charleston, SC, then Spartanburg, S.C., Greenwood, SC, and the last big one was in Knoxville, Tennessee; just about every plant purchased was done on seller financing; the man in Charleston, Everett Smith, wanted $3 million for his franchise; reasons why many bottlers were selling: "big" is the wave of the future; negotiations with Smith; Spartanburg deal was cash 183 Douglas Fleet, Richmond, VA, buys old Jackson Pepsi plant in Wilmington, with Don Watson acting as intermediary; Seven Up's Carl Brown, and Don Watson buy Doug Fleet's business and recently sold it making lots of money; both Don and Carl have given lots of money to UNC-W; Camerons sell bottling companies to Liggett in 1979; Liggett approached the Camerons; in 1972, needing capital to build a big bottling plant in Columbia, SC, they go public and sell 20% shares to public; also reorganize interests: whereas Atlantic Telecasting had been the mother company, owning the TV station and the bottling companies, they now organized the Atlantic Pepsi Cola Bottling Company, which becomes a holding company for Atlantic Bottling Company and the

5 Daniel David Cameron, Tape No DC, page 5 of 6 Atlantic Telecasting Corporation; following the 1974 oil embargo, stock goes down, 5% of 20% pubic shares bought backby original stockholders sold Pepsi Cola operations for $120 million, and sold the television station in 1987 for $35 million; in the meantime, Roy Park's portion of the TV station had been bought out for $1.6 million; almost bought another TV station in Albany, Georgia; owner, Mr. Gray, was chairman of Democratic party in Georgia, and good friend of Jimmy Carter's, and he owned both the local radio and TV station, and had to get rid of one or the other; so the Camerons had worked out a deal and signed it with only one proviso: the outcome of scheme to get another TV station in Albany; Gray loaned a black group money to build another station in Albany, and thus to end his, Gray's local monopoly, and so the state commission ruled Gray could keep his station; the Camerons thus lost the station 298 TV business got better but DC concentrated on bottling business; the franchises were available everywhere, but financing them was almost impossible 316 DC considers Committee of 100 as greatest accomplishment; cmtt. had great results; reasons for business success: VMI did a lot; best personal success was convincing people to sell him Pepsi companies [interruption]; 345 Development of Figure Eight Island; hurricane of 1954; owners put property up for sale; DC, BBC Jr. and Raifor Trask buy in 1955, begin developing in 1966; homeowners on Figure Eight own bridge: no public money on island; [shows photograph of home at island]; description of house and property on island; bought it as an investment; Wrightsville was getting crowded; impossible to do now what we did then 398 Wilmington's future; industrial efforts concentrating on small, clean industries; running out of industrial sites in New Hanover County; Pender County is now member of Cmt of 100, which is handling Pender's development; Wilmington will grow, but big industries will not come: don't want them, don't need them; movie industry is great; Andy Griffith bought a house at Figure Eight; nobody ever sees AG

6 Daniel David Cameron, Tape No DC, page 6 of How will Global Transport affect Wilmington? Don't know, but if Felix Harvey thinks it's good, then it is probably good; Wilmington doesn't really need any of this; Michael Jordan just gave money to Cape Fear Museum; DC is president of the Black Boys' Club: 99.9% black membership; Jordan gives about $7500/year to club for the past three years; DC fist white person on board 25 years ago; the director of the club, Walter Bess, a black man, asked DC to come on the board; DCs work with the Club, primarily fundraising for it as a United Way project