Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

A speech delivered by a key advisor to Roldós, José Carvajal, summed up the new administration’s attitude:

If a partner [Texaco] does not want to take risks, to make investments for exploration, or to exploit the areas of an oil concession, the other partner has the right to make those investments and then to take over as the owner…

We believe our relations with foreign companies have to be just; we have to be tough in the struggle; we have to be prepared for all kinds of pressures, but we should not display fear or an inferiority complex in negotiating with those foreigners.³

On New Year’s Day, 1980, I made a resolution. It was the beginning of a new decade. In twenty-eight days, I would turn thirty-five. I resolved that during the next year I would make a major change in my life and that in the future I would try to model myself after modern heroes like Jaime Roldós and Omar Torrijos.

In addition, something shocking had happened months earlier. From a profitability standpoint, Bruno had been the most successful president in MAIN’s history. Nonetheless, suddenly and without warning, Mac Hall had fired him.

CHAPTER 25. I Quit

Mac Hall’s firing of Bruno hit MAIN like an earthquake. It caused turmoil and dissension throughout the company. Bruno had his share of enemies, but even some of them were dismayed. To many employees it was obvious that the motive had been jealousy. During discussions across the lunch table or around the coffee wagon, people often confided that they thought Hall felt threatened by this man who was more than fifteen years his junior and who had taken the firm to new levels of profitability.

“Hall couldn’t allow Bruno to go on looking so good,” one man said. “Hall had to know that it was just a matter of time before Bruno would take over and the old man would be out to pasture.”

As if to prove such theories, Hall appointed Paul Priddy as the new president. Paul had been a vice president at MAIN for years and was an amiable, nuts-and-bolts engineer. In my opinion, he was also lackluster, a yes-man who would bow to the chairman’s whims and would never threaten him with stellar profits. My opinion was shared by many others.

For me, Bruno’s departure was devastating. He had been a personal mentor and a key factor in our international work. Priddy, on the other hand, had focused on domestic jobs and knew little if anything about the true nature of our overseas roles. I had to question where the company would go from here. I called Bruno at his home and found him philosophical.

“Well, John, he knew he had no cause,” he said of Hall, “so I demanded a very good severance package, and I got it. Mac controls a huge block of voting stock, and once he made his move there was nothing I could do.” Bruno indicated that he was considering several offers of high-level positions at multinational banks that had been our clients.

I asked him what he thought I should do.

“Keep your eyes open,” he advised. “Mac Hall has lost touch with reality, but no one will tell him so—especially not now, after what he did to me.”

In late March 1980, still smarting from the firing, I took a sailing vacation in the Virgin Islands. I was joined by “Mary,” a young woman who also worked for MAIN. Although I did not think about it when I chose the location, I now know that the region’s history was a factor in helping me make a decision that would start to fulfill my New Year’s resolution. The first inkling occurred early one afternoon as we rounded St. John Island and tacked into Sir Francis Drake Channel, which separates the American from the British Virgin Islands.

The channel was named, of course, after the English scourge of the Spanish gold fleets. That fact reminded me of the many times during the past decade when I had thought about pirates and other historical figures, men like Drake and Sir Henry Morgan, who robbed and plundered and exploited and yet were lauded—even knighted—for their activities. I had often asked myself why, given that I had been raised to respect such people, I should have qualms about exploiting countries like Indonesia, Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador. So many of my heroes—Ethan Allen, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Lewis and Clark, to name just a few—had exploited Indians, slaves, and lands that did not belong to them, and I had drawn upon their examples to assuage my guilt. Now, tacking up Sir Francis Drake Channel, I saw the folly of my past rationalizations.