The Devil's Casino_ Friendship, Betrayal - Vicky Ward [116]
Shriver & Jacobson LLP, broadly what he'd written and offered him the opportunity to
embroider on any of his own commentary and to answer any of the criticisms about him.
Witzel eventually declined on Gregory's behalf, saying he was sticking with his policy of
"not speaking to the press," but to remember that some of his remarks--and others--might
be out of context.
Dick Fuld also could not speak to me for this book because of the lawsuits. However, as I
point out in the Epilogue, he and I did meet briefly (along with Kathy Fuld), and he was
very charming and very apologetic that he could not be more helpful. His lawyer, Patricia
Hynes of Allen & Overy, forbade him not just from talking but also from helping with
fact-checking.
But behind her back, Fuld was very helpful. Just because Lehman had died, loyalty to
Fuld did not. And I thank the people who spoke to me for him--off the record--and
checked facts with him for me, in the hope that this would be a truthful and accurate
portrayal of the man and what happened to him. Though all the stories about him were
run past people very close to him, and who were there with him when events described
occurred, I do not know that he personally corroborated every single incident. I just know
that the people with him in the room did.
Another person to whom it would have been helpful to talk was Martha Dillman. She told
me she did not want to revisit her memories, though she asked Lara Pettit to tell me that
the night Chris Pettit died there were three fatal accidents on the lake in Maine. I duly
noted this in the text.
In December 2009, just as the John Wiley & Sons team and I were finalizing the
manuscript for this book and we were wrapping up the fact-checking, I received 20 emails from former senior Lehman executives who knew this ship was finally leaving the
docks, readying for the presses. They were excited. They knew that all the dead bodies
had been uncovered and quite a yarn was about to be told.
One person wrote to me: "This book could be quite explosive (good for you!) and while I
want to be honest, I want to be sure it's done honorably." He was one of those who
wanted the truth out there, but to do so he wanted to make sure he was on the record in
some places and not in others.
I hope that I have told the "explosive"--but more important, the "true"--story of Lehman.
And I hope that, simultaneously, I protected my sources, and that we all kept our honor.
That, after all, is what we as writers are supposed to do.
Notes
Prologue
Page 5 The stock price rose Andy Serwer, "Lehman Brothers: A Super-Hot Machine,"
Fortune, April 11, 2006.
Page 6 I wake up every single night Richard Fuld, congressional testimony, October 6,
2008.
Page 6 This was before he learned that Gregory U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern
District of New York, nysb.uscourts.gov (Gregory filed on August 5, 2009).
Chapter 1 A Long, Hot Summer
Page 12 The star-studded, 500-guest event Richard Johnson, Paula Froelich, Bill
Hoffman, and Corynne Steindler, "$3M Party Fit for Buyout King," New York Post,
February 14, 2007.
Page 12 Just months earlier Andrew Ross Sorkin, "JP Morgan Pays $2 a Share for Bear
Stearns," New York Times, March 17, 2008.
Page 14 Also gathered were a large number Heidi N. Moore, "Lehman Brothers: How
Neuberger Berman Employees Made Millions," Wall Street Journal's Deal Journal Blog,
http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2008/08/28/lehman-the-history-of-neuberger-bermanpayouts/, August 28, 2008.
Page 14 Glucksman was offered $15.6 million Ken Auletta, Greed and Glory on Wall
Street: The Fall of the House of Lehman (New York: Random House, 1986), 220.
Page 15 The firm was founded in 1850 Ibid., 27.
Page 15 With the post-Civil War expansion Ibid., 27-30.
Page 15 He decorated the walls Ibid., 32.
Page 15 Bobbie was not much of an investment banker Ibid., 32.
Page 15 They were principals Ibid., 15.
Page 15 Shearson taking over Lehman Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, Barbarians at