Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

“Senator Marshall, I’d like us to begin at the beginning,” Hammond said. And he did. He took Marshall through a dozen questions about the relocation of Converse, about the company’s relationship to the Mahoning Valley, and to the senator himself. He asked preliminary questions about the Dulles accident, about how Marshall first heard of it, and what he had done during the next hours.

“I returned to my office,” Marshall said.

“To do what?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why did you return to your office?”

Pace saw the senator frown deeply, as though trying to recall what he was thinking at the time.

“I don’t recall exactly,” Marshall said. “It seemed the thing to do, the place to be.”

Hammond fixed Marshall with that stare again, a look that said, “I don’t believe you,” but he made no comment.

“Do you remember what you did when you got to the office?” the counsel asked.

Marshall clasped his hands and let them slide between his knees under the witness table, so his elbows were resting on his thighs and his shoulders were lowered almost to the tabletop. It was impossible to tell if he was trying to recall old memories or hunkering down for a fight.

“As I recall, Mr. Hammond, there was a call waiting for me from Mr. George Thomas Greenwood, chief executive officer of the Converse Corporation. He wished to speak to me about what I knew of the accident.”

“Why would that be, Senator?”

“Because, as you know, and everyone in this room knows, Converse makes the engines for the Sexton 811, and they’re made in my state.”

“And what were you able to tell Mr. Greenwood at that time?”

“What time?”

“At the time you found a call from him waiting for you.”

“Nothing. I found myself asking him for information. He’d been watching television and had seen the first news reports. I hadn’t seen anything.”

“What else did you discuss?”

Marshall shrugged. “Nothing.”

“Did you agree to call him back later?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Did he say he’d call you?”

“He might have. I don’t remember exactly what we said. It was a pretty hectic time.”

“I see.” Hammond shuffled a few pages of notes. “It was at approximately this time, then, Senator Marshall, that you began to consider whether to sell your considerable stock holdings in the Converse Corporation?”

“It was,” Marshall confirmed without hesitation.

“Can you tell this committee what your thinking was?”

Marshall pushed himself erect in his chair and drew a deep breath.

“Yes, Mr. Hammond, I think I can tell you exactly. The bulk of my net worth was tied up in that stock… I never made any attempt to hide that. It is on the financial-disclosure forms I file every year with the Secretary of the Senate. I was concerned about—how shall I put it?—keeping all my eggs in one basket. I had great faith in Converse, great faith in its future, great faith in its future in Youngstown. I also felt a very keen sense of personal loyalty to the company. It had, after all, taken an enormous financial risk in relocating to Ohio. I felt back then the stock purchase was justified. But even before the ConPac accident, I was considering diversification. The accident only prompted the inevitable. I—”

“Excuse me for interrupting, Senator.” Hammond was looking at his notes, but his voice was directed strongly at Marshall. “Going back a minute, you said Converse had taken an enormous financial risk in relocating to Ohio?”

“Yes.”

“Really? Was the risk that great? After all, the city of Youngstown, Mahoning County, the state of Ohio, the federal government, all created substantial incentives for Converse to make the move, didn’t they, in the form of tax abatements and write-offs? It looks to me as though there was far greater risk to Converse in staying in southern California, given the high taxes, high cost of living, high wages, and so on.” Now Hammond looked directly at Marshall. “Isn’t it true, instead, that you and Mr. Greenwood were able to calculate to the dollar how much improved company profits and earnings would be if you could get a very specific set of financial concessions from local, state, and federal authorities? And isn’t it further true that you personally lobbied said authorities, from the President of the United States down, to grant those concessions? And finally, isn’t it true that you bought the stock in the first place because you were impressed with the value of the economic concessions granted to Converse?”

Marshall paused before answering, returning Hammond’s gaze with an unflinching glare of his own. Woodrow Vredenberg leaned over to advise the senator, but Marshall waved him off.

“Are you asking me about my purchase of the stock or my sale of it?”

“Both. You said you sold the stock the day of the ConPac accident because of your concern that all your eggs, as you described them, were in one basket. So the question arises as to why you invested so heavily in Converse in the first place. When I asked you about that, you testified it was a gesture of faith in the company. I’m asking if your faith wasn’t so much in the company as in the value of the package of economic incentives the company received from taxpayers.”

“I think that is a rather slanted way to put it, Mr. Hammond, but your facts are essentially correct,” he replied in measured tones.

“So on one hand, we have a stock purchase based on gratitude and faith in a company, given a valuable set of economic incentives. On the other hand, we have a stock sale, executed after a single aircraft accident, when you were suddenly overwhelmed with concern that your investment portfolio wasn’t sufficiently diversified. What I don’t understand is, what was there about this one accident, terrible though it was, that made you lose your gratitude and your faith?”

“I told you earlier, Mr. Hammond. I was uncomfortable at having all of my investments tied up in the one company.”

“Right. Then I asked you why you let that happen in the first place, and we started going in circles. To avoid doing so again, I will ask you simply: why didn’t you sell a portion of your Converse stock last January, before the accident? And why did you sell all of it?”

“It was a decision of the moment.”

Brent Hammond cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “Are you in the habit of making four-million-dollar decisions of the moment?”

“No,” Marshall replied simply.

“Was it a decision of the moment to buy the stock?”

“As I told you, it was a decision based on my faith in the company and its management, coupled with my conviction that Converse would do exceptionally well in Ohio’s economic climate.”

“Ah, yes, I recall that.” Hammond said. “Senator, was your faith in Converse so tenuous, was the financial health of the company so tenuous, that this one accident was sufficient to shake the faith that prompted you to buy the stock in the first place?”

“Of course not. It simply reminded me that I wanted some diversity.”

“Of course. And what other stocks have you bought with the proceeds of this sale?”

“None yet, Mr. Hammond. I’ve not had the opportunity to investigate any new investment opportunities. I’ve been busy.”

“All right. Now, Senator, isn’t it a fact when you’re buying and selling stock out of a money-market account, it takes a week or more for the proceeds of a sale to show up as a credit on your cash balance?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m told that’s the case. In any event, it’s highly irregular that the proceeds of this sale were credited to your money-market account and transferred to your checking account in the same business day.”