In 1960, Richard Simon died of a heart attack; six years later, Max Schuster retired and sold his half of Simon & Schuster to Leon Shimkin. Shimkin then merged Simon & Schuster with Pocket Books under the name of Simon & Schuster. In 1968, editor-in-chief Robert Gottlieb, who worked at Simon & Schuster since 1955 and edited several bestsellers including Joseph Heller's "Catch-22", left abruptly to work at competitor Knopf, taking other influential S&S employees, Nina Bourne, and Tony Schulte. In 1979, Richard Snyder was named CEO of the company. Over the next several years he would help grow the company substantially.