1. Christopher Ogden, Legacy, A Biography of Moses and Walter Annenberg. Boston: Little, Brown, 1999; John Cooney, The Annenbergs: The Salvaging of a Tainted Dynasty. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982.
2. Ogden, in Legacy, cites Annenberg as saying he declined to buy the Washington Times-Herald from Colonel McCormick and convinced McCormick to sell to the Grahams despite their reservations about Phil Graham’s drinking and mental stability. Thus, he felt responsible for putting together the newspaper marriage that made the Washington Post what it had become. He felt slighted because the Grahams had never credited him. Buffett says that Annenberg was exaggerating his role and that Graham viewed this notion as ridiculous.
3. Drew Pearson, “Washington Merry-Go-Round: Annenberg Lifts Some British Brows,” Washington Post, February 24, 1969.
4. In the end, he gave most of his money to the Annenberg Foundation and his art collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
5. Lally Weymouth, “Foundation Woes: The Saga of Henry Ford II, Part II,” New York Times Magazine, March 12, 1978.
6. Walter Annenberg letter to Warren Buffett, October 1, 1992.
7. Donner was not entirely obliterated. In 1960, seven years after he died at age eighty-nine, the $44 million in assets in his foundation was divided equally—between a newly formed Donner Foundation and the original foundation, which changed its name to the Independence Foundation (www.independencefoundation.org).
8. Walter Annenberg letter to Warren Buffett, October 1, 1992.
9. Said to the author in an interview in 2003—an indicator of the direction of his thoughts at the time.
10. Graham’s term, from her autobiography. Liz Smith called Graham Buffett’s “frequent hostess” and Diana McLellan said, “All the way up in New York, they’re talking about Kay Graham and Warren Buffet [sic] … but oh, so discreetly.” Diana McLellan, “The Ear,” Washington Star, March 12, 1977; Liz Smith, “Mystery Entwined in Cassidy Tragedy,” Chicago Tribune, March 6, 1977.
11. C. David Heymann, The Georgetown Ladies’ Social Club, New York: Atria Books, 2003.
12. See, for example, her relationships with Jean Monnet, Adlai Stevenson.
13. The letter was described this way in Lowenstein, Buffett.
14. Graham showed Dan Grossman a copy of this letter. Susan Buffett also showed Doris Buffett a copy of this letter. Graham’s papers currently are under seal.
15. “Interview with Susan Buffett,” Gateway, March 5, 1976.
16. Peter Citron, “Seasoning Susie,” Omaha World-Herald, April 7, 1976.
17. “Buffett Serious,” Omaha World-Herald, September 14, 1976.
18. Buffett considered buying Alfred Knopf’s apartment at 24 West 55th Street, later one of two landmarked Rockefeller apartments.
19. Interview with Susie Buffett Jr.
20. Interview with Al “Bud” Pagel.
21. Denenberg declined to be interviewed.
22. Al Pagel, “What Makes Susie Sing?” Omaha World-Herald, April 17, 1977.
23. Ibid.
24. Interview with Al “Bud” Pagel.
25. Ibid.
26. Peter Citron, “Seasoning Susie.”
27. Interview with Stan Lipsey. See Leo Litwak, “Joy Is the Prize: A Trip to Esalen Institute,” New York Times Magazine, December 31, 1967.
28. Steve Millburg, “Williams’ Songs Outshine Voice,” Omaha World-Herald, September 5, 1977.
29. Interview with Astrid Menks Buffett. The sleeping Warren famously did not notice whether Susie was there. In one story related by Racquel Newman, she decided to drive to Dottie’s to play music at around ten or eleven at night, ran out of gas in a snowstorm at midnight on her way home, and instead of waking Warren, called a friend and went on an all-night obstacle-filled expedition to a gas station on the interstate, delayed by a tractor-trailer jackknifed on the freeway. She finally got home shortly before dawn. Warren never knew she was gone.
30. Said to a friend of the couple’s who believes that Susie was probably sincere, both because she believed Warren really was that dependent on her and because of his preoccupation with suicide, linked to the many suicides among the Stahl family and the Buffetts’ friends.
31. Warren Buffett, “How Inflation Swindles the Equity Investor,” Fortune, May 1977. In a letter to the Graham Group, September 27, 1977, Bill Ruane describes how “This article can well serve as a basis for a discussion of so many things which are central to our economic concerns today. The article not only deals with the central theme of inflation but also with the effects of taxes, rate of return, dividend paying capacity and other elements which are crucial to the appraisal of aggregate values in our economic system.”
32. The Buffett Group would take this problem up again and again. Its members were pessimistic about whether the problem could be solved, for they doubted, with good reason, that Congress had the necessary resolve to control the federal budget over the long term.
33. Interview with Marshall Weinberg.
34. The $72 million includes his holdings in BRK, DRC, and Blue Chip Stamps at year-end 1977. Susie added another $6.5 million to this total. This does not include his indirect holdings through the three companies’ cross-holdings of each other.
35. Interview with Peter Buffett.
36. Two sources have confirmed this.
37. Interview with Astrid Buffett.
38. Ibid.
39. Interview with Michael Adams.
40. Interview with Astrid Buffett.
41. The 1977 letter contains significantly more “teaching” content than its predecessor. Although Buffett had control of Berkshire for twelve years previously, the 1977 letter was the first to be collected in a bound collection of letters he used to hand out to friends and is the first year featured on Berkshire’s Web site.