The Devil's Casino_ Friendship, Betrayal - Vicky Ward [18]
trader, and working for someone else who's a trader, you are always going to come up
against a different point of view," says Moncreiffe. "Dick had good instincts and usually
knew when to run for the hills when things were going wrong. He also had the requisite
toughness to run a trading operation. We didn't always see eye to eye. I used to tell him
that in trading there's many ways to skin the cat. I' m not sure that he agreed with me."
But Fuld and the other partners recognized Moncreiffe's talent, and before long he was
put in charge of trading the money markets side in London. One morning, he sold the
entire London certificates of deposit position because he saw the market trading badly. "I
remember the shock of colleagues," he says. "They asked: 'Why didn't you get Dick's
permission?' I replied, 'What's the point? By the time he wakes up it will be too late.' I
was right. But their reaction showed the fear he inspired."
In fact Fuld was impressed by that move and Moncreiffe was brought to New York to
manage money markets and U.S. Treasury trading. That's when the Scotsman's
relationship with Pettit was cemented.
"When it came to management decisions, Dick listened to Chris, who was never afraid to
speak his mind. Dick respected Chris. It made them a good team," Moncreiffe says. The
Scot became great friends with Pettit, whom he regarded as "such an inspiring person.
Chris and I got along really well together. And I think Chris was all ready to dislike me. I
think he thought, 'Oh no! Perry's going to be another one of these single-smartest-guy
types.' Chris had a thing against a 'single smartest guy, ' because I think there was a
tendency on the part of Lehman--maybe Dick and some other senior colleagues--to sort
of say about new hires, ' Ah, this is the single smartest guy,' and then you'd find out they
had feet of clay."
The two men found a lot to talk about, including Vietnam and Scottish and military
history. One of Pettit's historical heroes was the Scottish independence warrior King
Robert the Bruce, and Moncreiffe was descended from that line.
Moncreiffe had arrived back in New York just in time to watch Lew Glucksman plot his
coup while Pete Peterson went on being "Mr. Outside," the public face of the firm.
Glucksman was fed up of being talked down to and treated like a second-class citizen
who had to be tolerated. Peterson thought he was doing Glucksman a great favor by
making him co-CEO in May 1983. Of course, Glucksman didn't see it that way.
Glucksman thought he deserved more.
On July 13, 1983, Glucksman got to the office before Peterson, who was at a breakfast
meeting, and, according to Ken Auletta, who chronicled the ouster of Peterson in Greed
and Glory on Wall Street, began leaving "urgent" messages with Peterson's executive
assistant. When Peterson came in, he walked to Glucksman's office, not expecting
anything out of the ordinary. "I just thought it was one of our weekly meetings," Peterson
told Auletta.
But Glucksman was tense, and Peterson asked him what was on his mind.
"I've been giving a lot of thought to my life," Glucksman said. "You know how important
boats and cruising and ships are to me. Kind of in the same way I have satisfaction when
I' m in charge of a boat, I 'm beginning to get the same feeling about Lehman."
He was unhappy in his role and thought his abilities were under-utilized, that he, unlike
Peterson (a cultured New York intellectual and gadabout, who published essays in the
New York Review of Books and counted Henry Kissinger as a friend), didn't have any
"alternatives."
"This is my whole life," he said.
"Lew, let me see if I understand what you 're saying," said Peterson. "Are you saying you
want to run the business alone?"
Glucksman didn't just agree with that summation; he told Peterson he wanted him gone
by September 30. Everyone knew that Glucksman ran day-to-day operations of the firm,
and Glucksman knew that he could count on the support of the board,