GALVIN VISITED ARIANE HAZEN the next day. He asked me to come along—he wanted a colleague, he said, to make things more businesslike. She lived in Cleveland Park, in a Victorian house that was all turrets and porches and crenellated edges. This was where the city’s limousine liberals lived—except that they all had sport-utility vehicles parked out front nowadays. You could throw a rock in any direction in this neighborhood and be pretty confident of not hitting a Republican—that’s the kind of place it was. Ariane had painted her Cleveland Park mansion peach, lest anyone think she was just another footloose, unhappy newspaper heiress.
She greeted us in a black dress that hugged her large bosom. She seemed eager to talk business—even had a calculator ready on the coffee table, should we need it. It was odd that this woman in her forties had fastened her life’s passion on the notion that the family business wasn’t profitable enough. Making money had become fashionable, or at least acceptable, in the nineties—nothing to apologize about. And Ariane’s feminism gave her acquisitiveness a benign edge. She just wanted what was hers.
Galvin was dressed in a loose-fitting linen suit and an open-neck brown shirt—not the outfit of a mercenary, certainly. He was carrying a manila file folder, which he handed to Ariane. “We know who the raider is,” he said. Inside the folder was a document from one of the big Wall Street firms, reporting the sale of a big block of Sun stock. The purchaser was identified as a holding company called PalmTrust.
“I can’t tell you how my associate got hold of this,” Galvin said, nodding in my direction. “But it’s authentic.”
I turned to him curiously. What the hell? How had I become the source of inside stock information? Wasn’t that illegal? An exciting thought, but I would like to have been asked. Galvin shot me a glance that said, Keep quiet and play your part.
“I’ve never heard of PalmTrust,” she said. “Who are they?” Her hand was trembling slightly as she held the paper. She wanted to do the right thing, for herself and her family, but this was frightening.
“PalmTrust is registered in Delaware. The records there don’t explain much. But my associate tells me the company is controlled by a prominent real estate developer named Melvin J. Wolfe, from California originally. He made his money as a ‘bottom fisher.’ A tough guy, people say.”
He looked to me for confirmation. “That’s right,” I said, nodding.
“Is he really a real estate developer? That’s awful! I have to tell my father. What will they do, now that they’ve bought all this stock?” She looked at me, for some reason.
“Wolfe’s a madman!” I blurted out. “You can never tell what a man like that will do.” I was getting into my role, but Galvin extended his hand in my direction, in a gesture that said, unmistakably, Cut!
“It’s a fluid situation,” Galvin said more softly. “They’re just below the five-percent level. Maybe they’re buying it as an investment, but I doubt it. Seems more likely that they’re about to make a takeover bid.”
“What should we do?” she asked. By now, she was totally in his hands.
“Start planning a takeover defense, right away. Unless you want to sell them the newspaper. In that case, do nothing.”
She stretched out her arms toward this handsome man who had blown into town a few months before and had, in a short time—who could say how, exactly?—made himself indispensable to the people who mattered in Washington.
“Please,” she said. “Will you meet with my family? We need help, and you’re the only person I trust.”
Galvin gave her a gentle pat on the back. It was such an uneven contest. He knew what he wanted, and she didn’t. “I’m happy to help,” he said, “but you’re going to need a real plan. You can’t make folks like Wolfe go away just by blowing on them.”
We drove off in Galvin’s limousine. I was deep in the plush velour, feet up, and enjoying my new life as a method actor, but Galvin was not amused. “Don’t ever do that again,” he said. “I don’t like surprises. The next time you do that, you’re fired.” He had not raised his voice, but there was no mistaking his seriousness. It was unsettling. He wanted me to understand that I was his, and that he could hurt me. There are people in this world who are capable of doing violence to others. I am not one of them, so I’m slow to recognize this quality in others. But I saw it fleetingly that day in Galvin.
EIGHT
THE HAZEN AND CROSBY FAMILIES GATHERED THE NEXT morning at ten A.M. in the conference room of the family law firm. Harold Hazen must have hoped that if he hunkered down and cuffed his daughter back into line, it would all go away. But it was too late. At nine that morning, just before the market opened, PalmTrust made a public offer to acquire all outstanding stock of The Washington Sun and Tribune Co. for forty-eight dollars a share. The formal announcement added to the uneasiness in the room, as the two families struggled to understand what to do.
I had asked Galvin to let me come along, despite my over-acting the previous day. I wanted to be there, to see what cards he would pull from his deck. Galvin at first said no, but relented when I assured him that nobody would connect me with my ridiculous magazine. I doubted any of them had ever read it—they were at the top of the Washington social pyramid, after all; why would they need Reveal? The only reason he agreed, I think, was that he wanted an audience. I wore an old blue suit with stovepipe pants that made me look like I was walking on stilts.
The conference room was on the top floor of a new office tower that looked out over Lafayette Park and the White House. It was a handsome room, with a long marble conference table and the latest in audiovisual equipment. It was probably a mistake for the law firm to invite clients there. It was so lavish, it proclaimed that the firm was charging too much. Galvin and I sat at one end of the table, Harold Hazen and his lawyer at the other. On either side were arrayed various members of the Hazen and Crosby clans. Rather than divide along blood lines, they had arranged themselves according to age, with the parents—Harold’s generation—facing Ariane and the other children. It seemed odd to call them children—they were all in their thirties and forties—but that wasn’t far off. None of them had done much in the world, as far as I knew.
Mr. Hazen offered a gruff welcome and said the family would be grateful for any advice we might have. He was the sort of man who tried to be gracious even when he didn’t like you. But life was backing up on him, like sewage in a clogged pipe. He had worked hard for many years, and was confounded to discover that his family appreciated him so little.
Galvin’s charm, in contrast, was that he appeared to do everything effortlessly, and this morning was no exception. He looked as easy and comfortable in that office as one of the partners, and better dressed, in a trim gray suit and an ice-blue Hermès tie. The picture window was behind him, framing a postcard view of the White House. He commanded our attention, but I don’t think anyone, least of all me, could have anticipated what he would say.
“I feel honored to be here with you,” he began, gazing down the table at Mr. Hazen. “Your newspaper isn’t just a business, it’s a public trust.” Don’t lay it on too thick, I silently coached him. These people might have lost a step, but they weren’t stupid.
“I make it a rule never to give advice,” Galvin continued. “But if you’d like, I can help you think through your options.”
“Please do,” said Mr. Hazen. Heads nodded around the table.
“As I see it,” he said, “you’ve got three basic choices. None of them is perfect, but you’ve got to select one and stick with it. The first is simply to accept the offer PalmTrust made this morning. That would give you a nice profit on your shares, and maybe Wolfe will sweeten it a little, to fifty dollars a share, let’s say. That’s your first order of business. Do any of you want to sell your shares to PalmTrust?”
The room was silent for an agonizingly long moment, until Ariane spoke up. She was wearing a simple brown dress—all business. “Come on, people,” she said, looking at her brother and the Crosbys. “
It’s now or never.”
One of the Crosby boys raised his hand. He was blond and balding, with a face that looked like it had been through the washing machine too many times—a face that was a living warning that even the sturdiest families run out of gas eventually.
“I’m Andrew Crosby, Mr. Galvin. As far as I’m concerned, forty-eight dollars sounds attractive, and fifty even better. It’s not enough, but it’s more than we have.”
“Nonsense!” growled Harold Hazen. “They would be stealing the paper for that price. It’s outrageous. Let’s not talk about it anymore. It makes me ill. What is option number two, Mr. Galvin?”
“Option two is to fight the PalmTrust offer as hard as you can,” Galvin explained. “And you may win—if you stick together—because the company can’t be sold without approval of a majority of the stock held by people who are gathered in this room. But you’ll need to convince your board of directors that refusing PalmTrust is in the best interest of all the shareholders. And you need to ask yourselves the same question the analysts will be asking—which is whether you’re ready to be more aggressive and unlock more of the value that’s in the business.”
Ariane and the other children voiced their approval of the idea that the newspaper should be making more money. “Hear, hear!” said Andrew Crosby. This was the most polite revolution imaginable.
“I will listen to any reasonable suggestions,” said Mr. Hazen, looking to his lawyer for support. “But I must remind you that I still control the 1963 trust. And if I can look forward to continued support from Mr. Crosby Senior, that gives me a comfortable majority of the voting stock.”
Ariane nudged her younger brother, Michael, who had been quiet until now. He lived in Santa Monica most of the time, writing screenplays that were never made into movies. “I’d be careful with the math, Pop,” he said. “You need my support to vote the 1963 trust, and I’m still thinking things over.”
“Thinking things over?” The old man was shaking his head. “When did you all get so greedy?” You could see the hurt in his eyes. Did these people have any idea what “unlocking value” meant in practice? It meant firing loyal employees. It meant running pictures of bosomy women in bathing suits. It meant foolish contests and coupons and advertorial sections. Harold Hazen wouldn’t do it. He had never run the business that way, and he didn’t intend to start now.
“It’s not about greed, Daddy. That’s not what we’re saying.”
“Oh, I know what you’re saying. You want more money—so you want to sell out now, or keep your stock and find a new CEO who can pump it up. Well, that may or may not be in the newspaper’s interest, but it’s absolutely none of your business. It’s between me and the board of directors. Until they fire me, I report to them. So, what’s your third option, Mr. Galvin?”
Galvin had been listening silently as the family members fired poison darts at each other. He paused a long while before answering—walking to the window, studying the pedestrians ambling through Lafayette Park and the sharpshooters perched atop the White House. I was beginning to wonder whether he would say anything at all, he looked so pensive and uncertain. What an actor he is, I thought. I didn’t know where he was going, but I was spellbound.
“I hadn’t planned to get involved personally in this fight,” he began. “But you have a problem, and you need to solve it quickly or you’re going to destroy a great newspaper.”
“Spare us,” interjected Mr. Hazen. “What’s option three?”
“Option three is to find a white knight—someone who can make a friendly takeover offer and block PalmTrust. As I listen to this conversation, it’s becoming obvious that’s the right answer. Otherwise, this story isn’t going to have a happy ending.”
“And who might that white knight be?” asked Mr. Hazen. But the look on his face showed that he already knew. All of us did, suddenly, though I would wager that no one, least of all me, had realized that he was leading us into this cul-de-sac until we were actually there.
“Please listen carefully to what I’m about to say.” Galvin fixed his eyes on them, one by one, around the table. “I am prepared to offer fifty dollars a share for the Sun, with a premium of fifty-five a share payable to holders of the A shares who are seated around this table. That’s about seventeen percent more than what PalmTrust is offering. I’m doing this because I think I can save the paper and make it prosperous again. I would like to ally with the Hazens and Crosbys. Your alternative, I’m afraid, is a costly war with Mr. Wolfe. But if you aren’t interested, tell me quickly, because I don’t want to waste your time, or mine.”
Galvin sat down. Many voices were speaking at once, but the loudest was Harold Hazen’s. “What the hell?” he thundered. “What kind of a trick is this?”
But almost as loud was his daughter’s voice. “I think it’s a superb idea, and I think we should discuss it, and then put it to a vote.” That set off more tongue-wagging, back and forth. Galvin, only now, sneaked a glance in my direction. His face was ice cold, but his eyes were on fire.
The family lawyer suggested that now might be a good time for us to leave the patriarchs and their children alone. They had a lot to talk about. Galvin said he needed time too, to prepare a document for the board of directors outlining his bid and specifying the financial details. Before he left, he went around the table and shook hands with each member of the family, thanking them for the privilege of meeting with him. They looked up at him with a sense of bewilderment—this powerful, dark man in his perfect suit who had fallen out of the sky. Even Harold Hazen seemed undone by Galvin’s performance.
As Galvin reached the door, he turned back to them. “Do what’s best for the newspaper,” he said. “That’s all I ask.”
He didn’t say a word as we descended in the elevator, and didn’t open his mouth until we were out the door and around the corner. I expected a radiant smile, or even a shout of joy, but he was surprisingly cold and contained; he seemed, in fact, almost rueful. “I know I should be exhilarated,” he said, “but I found that sad. It was too easy. They’re nice people, but they’re dinosaurs. It’s time for them to get out of the way.”
As we walked up Connecticut Avenue, Galvin stopped and chatted with some of the people who were strolling to lunch—White House aides, journalists, the head of a local bank, partners in the city’s leading law firms. He had to stop every few steps; many of these people had been out to his house and wanted to thank him for his hospitality. He was already acting like the mayor of this little town, and he had barely arrived. That was Harold Hazen’s real problem. There was an inevitability about Galvin’s accession. The only question was what he would do with the power that was already flowing toward him so naturally and irresistibly.
NINE
GALVIN AND I SAT IN HIS GARDEN IN GEORGETOWN THAT afternoon, waiting for Ariane to arrive. He had invited her to come for a swim. That was a nice touch—it didn’t make her seem quite so much like his stooge, and Galvin wasn’t making any mistakes that day. He hadn’t lost the restless energy from the morning. He had a yo-yo with him, of all things, a beautiful handmade one carved in the shape of the world, and he was absentmindedly doing tricks with it while we talked. He was surprisingly proficient.
“You don’t see a lot of yo-yo expertise in the business world,” I said. “How did you get to be so good?”
“The Duncan yo-yo man taught me,” he said, spinning the little globe toward me in a looping arc. “He used to come by the school playground in Mount Lebanon selling yo-yos to the kids. He was a mysterious guy, drove a big Pontiac convertible, wore slick clothes. Probably he was a queer. He would teach us tricks—loop the loop, around the world. That was the biggest thing our parents had to worry about back then—that we were wasting our time learning yo-yo tricks and would never amount to anything.”
He gave it a few more practice spins, and then did a trick called cat’s cradle, in which he hoisted the string with his fingers so that it formed a little archway and then made the yo-y
o pass through, still spinning. I was impressed. But then, everything about Galvin impressed me. Where did his energy come from? Toward what goal was it really directed? The exterior of the man was so finely drawn, but the interior was still fuzzy halftones.
“Why do you want to buy the Sun?” I asked. That question had been nagging at me during his performance before the Hazens and Crosbys. “What’s in it for you? You don’t need the money. You don’t need the aggravation. You don’t really know anything about the newspaper business. I don’t get it.”
“Walk the dog!” he said. That was the name of another trick, not an answer to my question. He spun the yo-yo down to the ground and gave his wrist a little flick, which sent the tiny globe skittering along the flagstone of his patio. He gave me a wink and put the toy aside.
“It’s not about money,” he said. “You’re right about that. It’s about journalism. Basically, I think they’re producing a lousy paper and I can produce a better one. Not just more profitable, but better. How about that?”
He seemed to want my approval that this was an acceptable answer. I still wasn’t convinced.
The Sun King Page 7
