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was a dying brand and at the time of the merger (May 1984) the only former Lehman

Brothers entity that kept the Lehman moniker was LCPI. Had it not been for Chris Pettit,

the name Lehman could have ended up on the cutting-room floor. The new company

could have evolved into American Express Shearson.

No more Lehman Brothers.

Pettit's victory signaled the rebirth of the "one firm" spirit that Glucksman had wanted to

instill in his people, and tried--but failed--to spread throughout the firm.

Bob Shapiro says, "In that meeting, Chris and Perry were essentially anointed as the

leaders for LCPI. It's a meeting that, for many people, has taken on mythic, almost

religious, proportions. It was the beginning of the esprit de corps that LCPI took on then."

"From that moment on, Chris Pettit was the hero and the real leader of what came to be

Lehman Brothers," says J. Tomlinson "Tom" Hill, at the time a top Lehman investment

banker and now the vice chairman of the private equity giant Blackstone Group.

There were some casualties in this war. Joe Gregory did not speak to Lew Glucksman for

12 years--which was remarkable given that Glucksman not only had given Gregory that

internship when he was 16, but had also paid some of his tuition at Hofstra University

when Gregory had flunked a course and was broke.

Boshart, loyal to Glucksman to the end, took several years off and eventually went to

work for James L. "Jamie" Dimon at Bank One in Chicago. He did not speak to Fuld for

many years, though eventually he got over his bitterness and regretted it

Unsurprisingly, Dick Fuld's life at Lehman was thereafter complicated; he was now

responsible for negotiating for a firm that didn't really see him as its leader.

"Pettit was our leader," says Moncreiffe. "Fuld--well, Fuld was the front man who was

tough enough to negotiate with the almost-as-tough guys at Shearson who tried to wiggle

out of some of the assurances we had elicited. They were not all nice people. Their

culture was about the individual. Dick did a good job of facing off with them."

Others were less diplomatic: "Dick sucked up to Peter Cohen, which no one else wanted

to do," says one employee. Fuld's role at this point was a lonely one; he didn't receive

much recognition from the troops below him.

Initially both Fuld and Pettit kept glass offices on the ninth floor (the trading floor), but

Pettit was the manager who knew your name if you worked on the floor. Fuld did not.

If you had a problem, you went to Pettit. If you 'd messed up, you went to Pettit.

Pettit understood why Fuld did what he did--and, according to Moncreiffe, was grateful

that Fuld was the one who had to negotiate with the tough guys upstairs.

Contrary to some people's beliefs, the two men actually worked quite well together at this

point. "Chris was far more interested in running the business than in battling upstairs,"

says Bob Shapiro.

On the corporate videos that got made in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Pettit's

preeminence at LCPI is easily deduced from the simple fact that Fuld scarcely appears on

them at all.

In "Citizen Genirs," the video tribute to Bob Genirs, the chief administrative officer, the

entire firm comically searches for Genirs 's Rosebud (which turns out to be a calculator

called Victor). It's Pettit who appears as the boss.

"Dick was on the sidelines at this time," says Moncreiffe. "He wasn't the main guy urging

people to do the right thing and stick together. Chris did."

Jim Vinci, Pettit's chief of staff, says Pettit convinced everyone that "they were part of

something really special. And people believed him."

They were right to. According to Moncreiffe and others, they made way more money

than their Shearson counterparts.

And Jim Robinson noticed.

As a result, by 1990 LCPI was running all of fixed income for Shearson Lehman. The

Lehman traders had taken over the house. And the man pulling the strings was Chris