Bruck, Connie. The Predators' Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham and the Rise of the Junk Bond Raiders. New York: Penguin Books, 1989. 399 pages.
This book, originally published in 1988 by Simon and Schuster, was the first to blow the whistle on Michael Milken. Connie Bruck, a staff writer for the New York Times, worked on it for two and a half years, and interviewed almost 300 people. Fred Joseph, CEO at Drexel, agreed to cooperate with Bruck in February, 1986 -- a time when the business press universally admired Drexel for their ability to turn junk into gold. Drexel felt unassailable, and for months Bruck kept scribbling while they kept bragging. Then in November, 1986, Ivan Boesky pleaded guilty to insider trading and Drexel circled their wagons. Milken offered Bruck $250,000 not to publish the book, while Milken's attorney Arthur Liman (remember Iran-contra?) obtained a copy of the manuscript despite Simon and Schuster's security precautions, and planned an all-out counterattack with the help of Linda Robinson and her PR firm.Bruck says that when she started this book, her sympathies were more with Milken than with the corporate establishment that Milken was attacking. It was her willingness to be driven by the evidence that caused Jason McManus, Time Inc.'s editor in chief, to regard this book as "the finest piece of business investigative journalism since the turn-of-the-century muckrakers, Lincoln Steffens and Upton Sinclair."
Copetas, A. Craig. Metal Men: Marc Rich and the 10-Billion-Dollar Scam. New York: Harper & Row (Perennial Library), 1986. 224 pages.
Marc Rich started as a "metal man," a specialized form of commodity trading that deals in mineral resources. Of the eighty natural metals in the earth, forty are of industrial importance, and are bought and sold on the open market by traders. Innocent investors speculate on price fluctuations, while the metal men -- known for their wheeling and dealing -- might bribe foreign officials, start market rumors, or play tricks on other traders. Marc Rich did all of the above and more, and made $10 billion in the process. He started in 1954 at Philipp Brothers Trading, and by the 1970s was making huge profits for them by venturing into the spot oil market. At the end of 1973 he and Pincus (Pinky) Green left to form their own empire. They hired away some of Philipp Brothers' more aggressive traders -- the young high- rollers who thrived on cocaine and casual sex in the fast lane. Operating from New York, London, and Switzerland, Rich was in a league where one country is played off against another, with shadowy deals washed through Panamanian shell companies and dripped into off-shore banks. In the early 1980s, the U.S. went after Rich for tax evasion and oil-pricing scams. But as of 1994, he was living comfortably in Zug, Switzerland, where he is so important to the local economy that the Swiss legal system still refuses to extradite him.
Stein, Benjamin J. A License to Steal: The Untold Story of Michael Milken and the Conspiracy to Bilk the Nation. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. 221 pages.
Benjamin J. Stein's coverage of Michael Milken and Drexel was the first to reveal the extent of the junk bond problem. By the time this book was published, Milken was nearly out of jail -- his expensive lawyers had already convinced the judge to lessen his sentence from ten years to two years. Stein began noticing Milken and Drexel in the mid-1980s, received a death threat from a Drexel hotshot in 1988, and was trashed a few years later in a book by Jesse Kornbluth -- a biography arranged by Milken's publicist Ken Lerer that claimed Milken wasn't really interested in money.Stein is a lawyer, an economist who knows finance, a good writer, and someone who has a social ethic that goes beyond private profiteering. He might be the only such person in America who can get an occasional book published. He compares Milkenism to organized crime in its "use of underworld tactics of the con and the shakedown, the swindle and the heist, in the world of finance on a national and international scale." If the gruff, cagey Mafia hoods who testified at the Kefauver hearings in 1950 had been slick enough to work in "legitimate" business instead of street-corner gambling and loan-sharking, how much more money would they have been able to make? "Now we know," writes Stein. (page 187)
Stewart, James B. Den of Thieves. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. 494 pages.
In the early 1960s, students at UC Berkeley spent their summers registering black voters in the south; in 1964 they started the Free Speech Movement and in 1969 it was People's Park. But in 1986 Berkeley seniors voted to invite Ivan Boesky to speak at their commencement. Boesky, who had never been to college, looked up from his text and said, "Greed is all right, by the way. I want you to know that. I think that greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself." The students broke into spontaneous applause.Boesky, at the time worth $130 million, was convicted of insider trading. He helped finger Michael Milken, who was worth $700 million when he was released from prison after serving two years of a ten-year sentence. Meanwhile the 1986 class is having trouble finding jobs, and when it comes time for them to invest in their children's education, a good portion of their income will still be paying for the S & L deficit -- which was partially caused by Milken's junk-bond trading. It all fits.
Den of Thieves is basically a biography of Boesky, Milken, Dennis Levine, and Martin Siegel -- all convicted for Wall Street crimes. Author James Stewart, an editor at the Wall Street Journal, makes Oliver Stone look like he was guilty of understatement in his movie "Wall Street."
Here are the names most frequently mentioned in the above books:
ACKERMAN PETER ALEXANDER NORMAN E ALLIANCE CAPITAL ACCESS ALTMAN EDWARD AMIR PAUL ANDERSEN G CHRISTIAN ANREDER STEVE ARIANO BILL ASQUITH PAUL AUERBACH MARTIN J AYLWARD DAVID K BAIRD BRUCE A BALSER DONALD BECK JEFFREY BELZBERG HYMAN BELZBERG SAMUEL BELZBERG WILLIAM BERGERAC MICHEL C BILGER ARTHUR BLACK ELI M BLACK LEON D BLINDER MEYER BLUHDORN CHARLES G BLUME MARSHALL BLUMENTHAL W MICHAEL BOESKY IVAN FREDERICK BOLLAG BEN BOSSIDY LAWRENCE A BOYLAN MICHAEL BRANT PETER BRILL STEVEN BROSENS FRANK P BROWN DAVID (GOLDMAN SACHS) BRUCK CONNIE BRUMBERGER ALAN BUFFETT WARREN EDWARD BUFORD ANTHONY JR BURNHAM I.W. II (TUBBY) BUSCH KLAUS CAMERON DORT III CANNELLA JOHN CARBERRY CHARLES CARR FRED CARROLL JOHN (U.S.ATTORNEY) CAUSEY CHARLES CAYWOOD JAMES CECOLA RANDALL CHEMICAL BANK CLORE ALAN E COCHRAN SUSAN COGUT CRAIG COHEN CLAUDIA CONSIDINE FRANK CONTINENTAL CONNECTOR CONWAY STEPHEN J COPETAS A CRAIG CORRIGAN E GERALD COSS LAWRENCE M CURNIN THOMAS DAHL JAMES DAMATO ALFONSE M (R-NY) DAVIDOFF MICHAEL DAVIS MARTIN S DAVIS MARVIN HAROLD DE NUNZIO RALPH DEMANGET GERARD DICK MORTY DIKKO ALHAJI UMARU DILLER BARRY DINGELL JOHN D (D-MI) DOLAN BEVERLY F DOONAN THOMAS DOVE GUY DRAPKIN DONALD DREW RICHARD (MERRILL LYNCH) DREXEL BURNHAM LAMBERT DUVAL ALBERT ENGEL DONALD ENGELHARD CHARLES W EPSTEIN EDWARD JAY FALLAH REZA FARDELLA JESS FARLEY WILLIAM FRANCIS FEDDERS JOHN M FLACKS ALAN FLEISCHER ARTHUR FLOM JOSEPH H FLORENTINO CARLO FLUMENBAUM MARTIN FORBES MAGAZINE FORSTMANN THEODORE J FRAIDIN STEPHEN FREEMAN ROBERT (GOLDMAN SACHS) FREILICH JOSEPH FRIEDMAN MILTON FRIEDMAN WILLIAM (N.Y.LAWYER) FUSS ALBERT GARCIA TONY GARDINER PETER GEBAUER ANTONIO GENEEN HAROLD SYDNEY GENTRY GRANT GILDER GEORGE F GITTIS HOWARD GIULIANI RUDOLPH W GLASER DONALD (VICTOR POSNER LAWYER) GLEACHER ERIC GLUCK HENRY GLUCKSMAN LEWIS GOBHAI CAVAS GOLDBERG ARTHUR H GOLDING FAITH GOLDSMITH JAMES MICHAEL GOLDSMITH JERRY GOOD DANIEL GORDON ALBERT HAMILTON GORDON JOHN (KIDDER PEABODY) GOULET VICTOR GRANT JAMES (INTEREST RATE OBSERVER) GRASSGREEN RICHARD J GREEN PINCUS (PINKY) GREENHILL ROBERT F GROTE PETER GUTERMAN GERALD GUTFREUND JOHN H HACHEUL JACQUES HACKEL ALEXANDER HALE WILLIAM (PRINCETON-NEWPORT PARTNERS) HAMMERMAN STEPHEN L HARRIS IRA HEYMAN SAMUEL J HICKMAN WALTER BRADDOCK HILL J.TOMILSON III HMW INDUSTRIES INC HOFFMAN ROBERT HOROWITZ HARRY HURWITZ CHARLES E HUTTON HUBERT ICAHN CARL CELIAN IGOROV YURI INGERSOLL RALPH II IRANI RAY R JACOBS IRWIN L JAQUITH PETER JEFFERIES BOYD L JENSEN MICHAEL C (HARVARD) JESSELSON LUDWIG JONES LISA ANN JOSEPH FREDERICK H JOSEPH STEPHEN (DREXEL) KAMINER DANIEL KANTOR EDWIN KAPLAN MARK N KATZ GEORGE KAY DAVID (DREXEL BURNHAM LAMBERT) KEATING CHARLES H JR KEIM DONALD KERKORIAN KIRK KINGSLEY ALFRED KISSICK JOHN KISSINGER HENRY A KLUGE JOHN WERNER KNAPP CHARLES (TRAFALGAR HOLDINGS) KORNBLUTH JESSE KOSTELANETZ BORIS KRANTZ ROBERT KRAVIS HENRY R KROLL JULES LAW WARREN LEE DOUG LERER KENNETH LESSMAN LANCE LEUTERT JUERG LEVINE DENNIS B LEVINE THEODORE A LEVITAN IDA LEVY GUSTAVE L LEVY PAUL (INVESTMENT BANKER) LEWIS REGINALD F LEWIS SALIM B (SANDY) LICHTENSTERN ROBBIE LIMAN ARTHUR L LINDNER CARL HENRY JR LINTON ROBERT LIPTON MARTIN LITT ROBERT S LOCKWOOD HADLEY LOOMIS WILLIAM LORENZO FRANK LTV CORPORATION LYNCH GARY G MAGOWAN PETER ALDEN MALANOWSKI MARY LOU MANSFIELD MIKE J (D-MT) MANTELL EDMOND O.H. MARKS HOWARD (TRUST COMPANY WEST) MAUI ABOLFATH MAULTASCH CARY MAY PETER W MAY WILLIAM FREDERICK MCCARTHY FRED (DREXEL BURNHAM LAMBERT) MCCAW ROBERT MCGOWAN WILLIAM GEORGE MEIER BERNHARD MELTZER CLYDE MENDEL PERRY MEYER RALPH MILKEN LOWELL JAY MILKEN MICHAEL ROBERT MIZEL LARRY MOGIN DANIEL J MOORADIAN SETRAG MULHEREN JOHN A MURDOCH RUPERT MURDOCK DAVID HOWARD NAGLE REID NATIONAL ASSOCIATION INSURANCE COMMISSIONERS NEWBERG BRUCE L OBERMAIER OTTO OPPENHEIM STEVEN PAUL DAVID L PECORA FERDINAND PEDOWITZ LAWRENCE PEISER ROBERT PEIZER TERREN PELTZ NELSON PERELMAN RONALD OWEN PERETZ MARTIN PESONEN EERKI PHILIPP BROTHERS TRADING PHILLIPS GENE E PICKENS T BOONE PISKORA JOHN PITT HARVEY L PLETSCHER BRUNO POLLACK MILTON POLLACK MOSELLE POSEN FELIX POSNER VICTOR RAINWATER RICHARD EDWARD RAKOFF JED RATLIFF DAVID RAUCH MICHAEL REGAN JAMES REICH ILAN REZAI ALI RICH MARC DAVID RIFKIND SIMON H RIKLIS MESHULAM A RITCH HAL ROBINSON LAKE LERER MONTGOMERY (PR FIRM) ROBINSON LINDA GOSDEN ROCHA RODRIGO ROCHE JOHN THOMAS ROHATYN FELIX GEORGE ROMANO BENITO ROMANO ROBERT ROSS STEVEN J ROYCE STEVE RUBIN ROBERT EDWARD RYAN PETER (RICHCO SUGAR) SACHS PETER SALERNO ANTHONY (FAT TONY) SALSBURY ROBERT SAND LEONARD B SANDLER RICHARD SATO STEVE SCHENLEY DISTRIBUTORS SCHERER F M SCHNALL MELVIN ELLIOT SCHNEIDERMAN IRWIN SCHROEDER JULIAN SCHWARTZ FRED SHAD JOHN S.R. SHAGARI ALHAJI SHEHU SHENKER MORRIS SHENKMAN MARK SIEGEL MARTIN A SIGOLOFF SANFORD C SILBERSTEIN BEN SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER SIMON WILLIAM EDWARD SLATKIN MURIEL SOKOLOW IRA SOLOMON DAVID B SOLOMON PETER (SHEARSON LEHMAN) SONNENTHAL PETER SORTE JOHN SOSNOFF MARTIN SOUTHMARK INC SPIEGEL ABE SPIEGEL THOMAS SPIER PAUL SPURGE LORRAINE STEIN BENJAMIN J STEINBERG SAUL PHILLIP STEINER JEFFREY J STELZEL WALTER STONE ROGER WARREN STRAUSS AUDREY STROHOTTE WILLI STURC JOHN SULLIVAN FRED R TABOR TIMOTHY L TEAMSTERS UNION TENDLER DAVID THORP EDWARD THURNHER CHARLES TISCH LAURENCE ALAN TISCH PRESTON ROBERT TREPP WARREN TROLAND JOHN TROTTMAN STANLEY TSAI GERALD TURNER TED UNICOAL CORPORATION UNITED BRANDS COMPANY WALSH LEO WALTER JAMES (WHARTON SCHOOL) WANG LEONARD (LEO) WANNISKI JUDE WASSERSTEIN BRUCE WATERS STEVE WEDVICK PEER WEINBERG SANDY WEINGARTEN REID H WEINGARTEN ROBERT I WEINROTH STEPHEN WEKILI HUSHANG WIGTON RICHARD WILKIS ROBERT WILLIAMS EDWARD BENNETT WILSON WILLIAM A WINNICK GARY WIRTH TIMOTHY E (D-CO) WOLLMAN JACK WOLSTENCROFT FRANK WYATT OSCAR S JR WYNN STEPHEN ALAN ZADORA PIA ZAIDNER DAVID ZARZECKI CHARLES ZAX STANLEY ZELL SAMUEL
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