The Snowball_ Warren Buffett and the Business of Life - Alice Schroeder [233]
Buffett had a set of legacy shareholders at Berkshire Hathaway who understood his investing approach and would never question his judgment. Thus he had earned the luxury of ignoring Mr. Market, which had marked down the value of his portfolio to a fire-sale price. Others were not so lucky. Bill Ruane’s Sequoia Fund was headed for a terrible year, and Ruane’s main financial backer, Bob Malott, was apparently unhappy. Malott knew Ruane from Harvard and they had shared an apartment when Ruane was working at Kidder, Peabody in New York. But Malott was sold on Buffett’s approach and track record; he asked for Buffett’s help with the pension fund of FMC Corporation, the company he now headed. So Buffett went to San Diego and spent several days interviewing investment managers and explaining his thinking to FMC’s investment people. In the process, he converted them to Grahamites with what would eventually become powerful results. At first he said no to the request of managing the portfolio himself—then eventually agreed to manage a portion.33 Along with his acceptance, however, he gave a warning: FMC would come last among his priorities, after Berkshire and Diversified, and Warren and Susie Buffett. The canny Malott jumped at the opportunity anyway, not mistaking the larger point: That Buffett was willing to do it at all meant that he would do it well.34
Between his duties at FMC, Vornado, Blue Chip, and Wesco, and regular trips to New York, Buffett was now traveling much of the time. He was also busy courting Katharine Graham and had made such a good impression on her that she began to call him for advice. Susie made the rounds of Omaha, busy with the board of the Urban League, still giving out her scholarships, and taking on her latest crusade, the Future Central Committee, which was trying to save her alma mater, Central High School, from forced busing.35
As 1973 progressed, even Hamilton the dog must have noticed the silence and emptiness descending on the Buffetts’ crazy, noisy home.36 Howie was two hundred and seventy-five miles away from Omaha at Augustana College. Susie Jr., unhappy with Lincoln, had transferred to the University of California, Irvine, where she was majoring in criminal justice.37 Peter, the child who had never required attention, was now a sophomore in high school. Thinking of moving to California, Susie had taken him to look at schools in Orange County. They stayed in Omaha, however, and now Peter spent much of his time in the basement, where Susie, who had gotten him interested in photography, had built him a darkroom.38
Often now Susie stayed up late at night alone, listening to music that transported her to some different place.39 She loved the jazz guitar of Wes Montgomery and great soul music, like the Temptations, who sang of a world in which it was men who felt all the longing.40 She read books like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou’s autobiographical account of overcoming the forces of racism, sexual abuse, and repression that made her early years a prison. “The idea of being confined in a place not of your choosing ran deep for her,” Peter says—not surprising after her childhood shut away in a sickroom, and growing up with a sister who was disciplined by being locked in a closet. Susie longed for romance, but now knew that she and Milt were never going to get married. Nevertheless, she could not bring herself to give up her connection to Milt.
She was also spending more time with her tennis crowd of younger people at Dewey Park. One, John McCabe, a coach with a subdued personality, a sadness somewhat like her own, and a certain fragility, resembled most of her other lonelyhearts, but she seemed particularly drawn to him.41 Now that Susie had reasons to be away from the house most of the time, the hubbub began to dim, her hangers-on hung out with Susie