Father, Son & Co.

by Thomas J. Watson

  Another of Dad’s men I quickly came to count on was Al Williams. I admired him because he came from a background just as rough as Dad’s. His father had been a section boss in a coal mine who got fired and blackballed during the Depression for siding with the miners. At the same time my father was becoming famous as the highest-paid executive in America, the thousand-dollar-a-day man. Al, who was in accounting school, saw that in the newspapers and thought, “Boy, they pay good money in that company. That’s where I want to work.” When I came back from the war he’d been at IBM five years, and everybody agreed he was outstanding. His office was right across the hall from mine. Instead of looking as if he’d come from a little mountain town in Pennsylvania, Al seemed like a graduate of Yale. I asked him how he got so smooth and he was very open with me. He said, “I found out people I admired bought their clothes at Brooks Brothers, so that’s where I started buying mine. I noticed I couldn’t talk easily at dinner parties, so I began to read the classics.” Besides working long and hard hours, he was trying to make up for not going to college. He had his day set up so that he got up at seven, played tennis from seven-thirty to eight-thirty to stay in shape, got to work on time, did his work, went home, read great books for an hour, had dinner, listened to classical music for a while, and went to bed.

  Al was so much more demanding of himself than I. I knew he’d come to IBM out of admiration for Dad, and it pleased and surprised me to find that he took me seriously as well. I was never sure that people I respected would take me seriously once they got to know me. But Al and I made a good combination. He was totally policed as a man, orderly, and a little cautious; I was innovative, highly motivated, and not cautious at all. With his CPA and his financial sense, Al made up for a big gap in my knowledge. I never had any pretensions about understanding money, and at the beginning I didn’t even know the difference between debt and equity in the company accounts. But I never felt embarrassed to ask Al a question, and an answer from him was like an answer from on high. With Williams and LaMotte and a few others in those early days, I knew I’d found a team of my own.

  Father was famous for having the longest entry in Who’s Who in America—sixteen and a half inches, in fine print, of clubs, associations, foundations, honorary degrees, and decorations. I doubt very many people ever surpassed that; I certainly never did. Running IBM took only about half his time, and he spent the rest in public life, constantly extending his influence on behalf of world peace, IBM—and T. J. Watson. Dad was by now as prominent in reality as I’d imagined him when I was a boy, but he never stopped courting people in high places. J. Edgar Hoover, for example. I had a chance a few years ago to look at Dad’s FBI file, which consists mostly of letters he exchanged with the director after the war. I had to laugh. He bombarded Hoover with compliments—for being decorated by King George, for getting an honorary degree, even for being named in 1950 “Big Brother of the Year” by a charity for boys. In his free moments Dad liked to study the newspapers and seize opportunities to fire off telegrams to prominent people, some of whom he hadn’t met yet, congratulating them on something they’d done. He also liked to send copies of IBM publications in which they were mentioned. All this was pure salesmanship, of course, and Dad kept it up as long as he lived.

  But most of Dad’s accomplishments in public life were much more serious, and were motivated by genuine concern for the good of mankind. The United Nations was his passion. He thought it could succeed where the League of Nations and the International Chamber of Commerce had failed, and as soon as World War II ended he started campaigning again for World Peace Through World Trade. “When there is a proper flow of goods and services across borders,” he said, “there will be no need for soldiers to cross them.” In one of his more memorable Think magazine editorials he called the opening session of the UN the “first day of school” for mankind. He said, “Everyone everywhere should clearly understand that this is the most important international meeting in history.”

  Dad never worked in any official capacity for the UN, but for years statesmen and diplomats came to him for advice and for his terrific ability to make things happen. He was constantly hosting receptions and dinners for members of the international community, and the staff at IBM was often busy with UN affairs—everything from organizing public education programs to lining up boxes at the Met and seats at Broadway musicals for visiting dignitaries. Trygve Lie and Dag Hammarskjöld, the first two secretaries general, came to see Dad at his office at IBM, and in 1946 even Winston Churchill sought him out. They met in Florida; Dad was on vacation and Churchill was on his way to Missouri, where he made the great speech in which he said “an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”

  As involved as my father had been with FDR, he shied away from the Truman White House. He and Truman had a lot in common—they both came from poor rural backgrounds and both had strong, simple philosophies about the value of hard work, honesty, and so on—but I think Dad saw Truman and his rough Missouri friends as representing a step backward for the country. Dad gave him the respect of office, but like most people never expected Truman to survive the election of 1948, and even after Truman upset Tom Dewey, Dad kept his distance. But the rest of us knew the Trumans pretty well. My sister Jane had met Margaret Truman at the end of the war, and they’d become fast friends. When Jane got married in 1949, Margaret gave her a bridal dinner and was a bridesmaid at the wedding. My brother, who was finishing his last year at Yale after coming back from the war, also was friendly with Margaret. The gossip columns made a lot of the fact that Dick escorted her to the opera in New York and spent a few weekends visiting her in Washington, but there was nothing serious behind it.

  Dad was using the Truman years to build a relationship with the one American he thought was as great as Roosevelt: Dwight Eisenhower. In 1946 everybody knew that Eisenhower was dissatisfied serving as army chief of staff, and the most powerful people were competing for his attention. Financiers were offering him companies to run, and there were both Republicans and Democrats who thought he ought to be president. Nobody knew Eisenhower’s political leanings—in fact, after FDR died, Eleanor Roosevelt and her children tried to get Eisenhower to run as a Democrat; and even Truman volunteered his support. But Eisenhower said no to everything. He didn’t want to go into business, and said he didn’t feel it was right for a career soldier to hold high public office.

  Dad had been introduced to Eisenhower right after the war and the two of them really hit it off. Eisenhower liked businessmen, and his optimistic idea of America’s future was very similar to Dad’s. Dad also understood something about the general that a lot of people hadn’t figured out yet: Eisenhower was ambitious, but his ambitions weren’t of the usual sort—he was just looking for the best way to repay the great debt he felt he owed America. He’d started poor in Kansas, and he’d risen to become a great hero and the supreme commander of all the Allied forces in Europe. He wanted to spread peace and the American way of life all over the world, but he didn’t know how to go about it.

  That was where Dad came in. He gave Eisenhower a transition into civilian life by getting him appointed president of Columbia University. Dad was a major benefactor of Columbia and vice chairman of the board of trustees. By the end of the war Columbia’s great president, Nicholas Murray Butler, was becoming very infirm. Most of the board wanted to recruit another educator to succeed him. Dad didn’t object to that, but he thought that General Eisenhower would do more for Columbia’s stature than any professional educator.

  So Dad talked the board into letting him go to the Pentagon and offer Eisenhower the job. He told Eisenhower, “You are a great hero, and I represent a great university. We’d like you to be its president.”

  The general said, “You’ve got the wrong Eisenhower. You should talk to my brother Milton.” Eisenhower’s brother was head of Kansas State University at the time. Dad kept after the general for more than a year. Finally, in the spring of 1947, Eisenhower said yes. He and Da
d ran Columbia together until Eisenhower left three years later to head NATO. Eisenhower took to calling Dad his “partner” at Columbia, and really went to school on him. With the help of my father and other prominent businessmen such as Phil Reed of General Electric and William Robinson of Coca-Cola and the New York Herald Tribune, Eisenhower got into the right clubs and onto the right committees, and learned which social invitations to accept and which to decline. Later on, when the general joined the Republican party, Dad stepped into the background because he was a loyal Democrat. But he probably did as much as anyone to get Eisenhower ready for the White House.

  Even though I had no illusions about becoming Dad’s equal, I wanted to be ready to represent IBM to the world. I totally believed the idea he had drilled into my head since boyhood: that what a chief executive does outside his business is just as important as what he does at his desk. So I set out to build my reputation by doing charitable work and making friends with prominent people outside the business. After the war Dad made sure that opportunities started coming my way—things that were suited to my modest ability and modest pocketbook. For instance, I had a call from Roy Larsen, the president of Time Inc., asking me to serve in the 1948 New York City United Fund drive, of which he was chairman. My first impulse was to say, “I don’t live in the city, so why should I?” But I realized, “Here is an eminent man, halfway in age between my father and me. I can work with him and learn something. I can meet other important people who are involved in the drive.” That’s the way it worked out. Over the next few years I was invited to join the Greater New York Council of the Boy Scouts, which I eventually headed, and the United Nations Association, to promote the UN in America.

  It was easy to get involved in these things because I was T.J. Watson’s son, but not so easy for me actually to handle myself at those meetings. Dad thrived on being in the public eye. I’d often seen him perform at meetings and dinners in New York. He’d get up, start working the room, hit every doggone table where he knew anybody, shake every hand, and particularly—even if he was on the dais—go down to the IBM table and meet all the men and their wives. In a single evening he might meet four hundred people. I was different: I didn’t like giving speeches, or attending dinners, or making chitchat at cocktail parties—and I was terribly inept at it. But even if I didn’t enjoy the meetings I went to, I always came home with a notebook full of names. A good businessman needs a lot of friends. Cultivating them is a laborious process, and how well you succeed is a direct result of how much effort and thoughtfulness you bring to bear. When I was introduced to somebody new I’d often send a note saying how much I’d enjoyed meeting him; if my new acquaintance had expressed an interest in a subject that I had a good book about, I’d send along a copy of the book. People remember gestures like that for years. I kept a file on each new acquaintance so I wouldn’t be handicapped by my memory. I noted his or her name, addresses, telephone numbers, spouse’s name, and so on. I always made a note of where we’d met and the person’s specialty or interest.

  The more I circulated, the less awkward I felt and the more I learned about the fine points of sociability. Often these lessons came in unexpected ways. Once in New York I was seated next to Governor Tom Dewey at a Boy Scout luncheon. I stuck out my hand and said to him, “I’m Tom Watson Jr.” He grinned and said, “You know, you’re doing everyone you meet a real favor when you start a conversation that way, instead of saying ‘Hello, Governor Dewey,’ and leaving me to guess who you are. Watch what happens during this lunch. Somebody will come by here and say to me, ‘Hello, Tom! Mary sends her best!’ I won’t know who he is or who Mary is, and I’ll have to sit and be the damn fool.”

  I thought he might be putting me on, but sure enough, pretty soon a man came up and said, “Hi, Governor! I’ll bet you don’t remember me!” It happened all through the lunch. I always make a point of mentioning my name to people who don’t know me well.

  Oddly, the community in Greenwich, Connecticut, was much harder to break into than New York. Olive and I were used to the army life we’d just left, and while military posts may be stodgy and ingrown, they have pleasant customs for making newcomers feel at home. When you arrive at a new base your neighbors drop by to make “arrival calls”—welcoming you to the post, giving you the word on the commanding officer, telling you where the best stores are, and so on. We didn’t know that in Greenwich it worked exactly the opposite. You made your way into clubs through friends, if you had any, but nobody ever called on you. After a few months, Louis and Grace Walker, whom we knew vaguely from before the war, took us under their wing and we gradually started getting invitations to dinner parties and country clubs. John Bartol, an executive with American Airlines, brought me into a men’s investment club, where talk about money was just an excuse for Greenwich men to get together once a month. In that club I met most of the young leaders of the town. But overall Olive and I led a fairly secluded life.

  Our household at first consisted of young Tom, a new baby—a wonderful girl whom we named Jeannette after my mother—and a nurse. We all squeezed into a house that was too small on the day we bought it. After a couple of years came another beautiful baby daughter, whom we named Olive, and we moved to a bigger place, on the bank of a pond with swans. On weekends the kids and I would paddle around in a war-surplus rubber raft. For fun, I bought a used sailboat that I kept at a local yacht club—the first sailboat I ever owned. It was called Tar Baby; it leaked and sailed poorly but it didn’t cost very much. I used it in my first tries at ocean racing.

  I commuted by train into the city every day. I thought the station platform was an exciting place: there was a newspaper to buy, and my group of acquaintances slowly grew so there was often someone to say hello to. And there was always the challenge of finding the right spot on the platform so that when the train pulled in I could get a seat alone or one next to someone I knew. We all rode on fifty-trip tickets, and it cost less than a dollar to get into New York.

  I started out catching an early train, to make sure I got to work by nine. But before long I figured out there was a smarter way to commute. The people on my usual train were all worker bees—young fellows on their way up who had to get to the office on time. Older, more successful businessmen generally skipped the early trains, and from time to time I’d arrange my schedule at IBM so I could ride later too. In this way I got to know some of the most influential businessmen in New York, such as Stanley Resor, who with his wife had built J. Walter Thompson into one of the world’s top advertising agencies. The man I valued the most on those train rides was old George W. Davison, the retired chairman of the Central Hanover Bank, which later became Manufacturers Hanover. Father had introduced us originally, and the time I spent riding with Davison and listening to his observations was almost as valuable as the time I spent with Dad. I liked Davison from the minute we started talking. The first advice he ever gave me was on the subject of height. Davison was tall in wisdom, tall in knowledge, tall in his way of relating to the world, but physically he was only about five feet eight inches. He said, “This is not a fair world. Don’t get the idea that all the good are rewarded or all the bad are punished. You can start right in with how tall you are. It’s a lot easier to be a success when you’re tall, because people notice you.” Then he smiled and said, “On the other hand, it also helps to be smart, and I’m smart.”

  Davison must have heard from Dad about my tendency to blow my stack, because he was always talking about the need for self-control in business. He taught me the expression, “What you haven’t said, you can say any time.” That still comes back to me when I’m about to send a scathing letter that I may end up regretting. I don’t always follow Davison’s advice, but at least I remember it.

  I always felt as if I had to be on my toes when I was around men like Davison. But Dad told me that was a good thing. He said, “Don’t make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up.” Doing that broadened me, but
I had to get through some awfully rough moments. One night in 1949, Davison had Olive and me to dinner at his house. There were a couple of other executives from the Central Hanover Bank with their wives, and there was a guest of honor, a Spaniard named Admiral Luis de Flores. De Flores was a dramatic fellow with a turned-up mustache who had flown in World War I and invented a number of instruments for airplanes. His latest project was more along IBM’s line. He and his son had designed an electronic filing system for libraries, and the Central Hanover people had put a couple of hundred thousand dollars into it.

  We had a good dinner, and then we men repaired to the library for brandy. No sooner was the door closed than Davison’s colleagues really let me have it. They said de Flores was going to eat IBM up with his library system. Of course, it should have been obvious that libraries rarely have enough money to pay for fancy technology. Instead I thought, “Gee, here we have this multi-million-dollar research budget, and this Spaniard is beating us.” All the same, it steamed me up that Davison should let his men gang up on me. When it was time to leave the library and rejoin the ladies, I said, “Just a minute, gentlemen. I’d like to propose a bet. If any of you would like to buy three thousand dollars’ worth of de Flores’s stock tomorrow, I’ll be glad to buy three thousand dollars worth of IBM stock. Then we’ll wait five years. If IBM goes up more than de Flores, I’ll take your stock, and if de Flores goes up more, you can have mine.” Nobody wanted to bet. Within a year, de Flores was defunct, to my relief, even though I had nothing against him personally. I doubt that it was ever Davison’s intention to put me through the wringer like that, but it’s an illustration of what it means to have those difficult friends Dad recommended.