Word: naderism
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...prudent bankers naturally felt that they had to put some limits on the extent of their help, and in setting those limits they may have developed a kind of counterguerrilla guide for "raided" businessmen. Shortly after Nader's visit, Wriston told his officers that the investigators should be given the same information as stockholders and newsmen. In particular, he warned them against saying anything that would help the bank's competitors or violate a customer's privacy. Bank attorneys noted that the latter precaution was a legal necessity...
Some matters were painstakingly negotiated. Nader Lieutenant David Leinsdorf, a 28-year-old former antitrust-trial assistant in the Justice Department, originally asked to interview no fewer than 750 Citibank officials and employees; the list was finally arbitrated to 53. Each interview was taped and conducted in the presence of a senior bank officer, an attorney and a public relations man-a team that usually outnumbered the two or three student interviewers...
Term-Paper Material. After being questioned by the students for one to three hours each, the bankers were nearly unanimous in giving them high marks for intelligence and zeal. But most doubted that anyone in the Nader group knew enough about banking to make valid judgments on the more complex issues. Says Thomas C. Theobald, a senior vice president: "It was like two college students looking for term-paper material." He was surprised that the interviewers overlooked several obviously controversial topics, including Citibank-managed investments in South Africa and in companies that are polluters...
...walked in that I was guilty before I took the witness stand." Heilshorn found that the interviewers generally assumed that his institution is "a big, fat New York bank hoarding capital" and held "a clear bias toward centralized Government control" of private business. Says Wriston: "Most of the Nader team saw the experience as an adversary proceeding. Whatever you told them, they acted like you were trying to mislead." The investigators turned down an offer from the bank for each of its division heads to give an hour-long lecture on his own job. They also declined an invitation...
...loan customers who had been judged in default and interviewed dozens of them. They also conferred with ex-employees, banking scholars and Government regulators. Somehow, the investigators got hold of three secret studies, which the bank itself had commissioned, on the subjects of employee and customer attitudes about Citibank. Nader estimates that only 10% to 15% of the report was drawn from official interviews within the bank...