All the Presidents' Bankers (2 page)

CAST OF MAIN CHARACTERS

Bankers

Winthrop Aldrich:
President of Chase, 1930–1934. Chairman of Chase, 1934–1953. Banker most publicly supportive of Glass-Steagall Act. Allied with FDR and Truman. Ambassador to Britain under Eisenhower.

Henry Alexander:
Chairman of the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company Bank, 1959–1967. Chairman of J. P. Morgan Bank, 1950–1959. Allied with Eisenhower.

Samuel Armacost:
Chairman of Bank of America, 1981–1986. Allied with Reagan.

George Baker Sr.:
Cofounder and leader of the First National Bank, 1863–1931 (though after 1913, his son George Baker Jr. was more involved running the bank).

Lloyd Blankfein:
Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, 2006–present.

W. Randolph Burgess:
Vice chairman of National City Bank, 1938–1952. Roles up through vice president at Federal Reserve Bank of New York (New York Fed), 1919–1938. Head of NATO, 1956–1962.

Willard Butcher:
Chairman of Chase, 1980–1991.

George Champion:
Chairman of Chase, 1961–1969.

A. W. Clausen:
President and CEO of BankAmerica Corporation, 1970–1981. Chairman of Bank of America, 1986–1990. President of the World Bank, 1981–1986. Allied with Carter and Reagan.

Jamie Dimon:
Chairman of JPMorgan Chase, 2004–present. Class A director of New York Fed, 2007–2012. Received $23 million package in 2011, more than any other bank CEO.

Thomas Gates:
Chairman and CEO of Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, 1965–1976. Secretary of defense under Eisenhower.

A. P. Giannini:
West Coast–based founder of Bank of America. Allied with Truman’s Treasury secretary, John Snyder.

Gabriel Hauge:
Chairman of Manufacturers Hanover, 1970–1979. Eisenhower’s lead economic adviser.

Thomas Labrecque:
Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank, 1990–1996.

Thomas Lamont:
Partner, then acting head of J. P. Morgan Bank, 1911–1943. Chairman of J. P. Morgan & Company, 1943–1948. Worked closely with Wilson on the Treaty of Versailles and promoted the League of Nations. Also allied with Hoover and FDR.

Russell Leffingwell:
Chairman of the J. P. Morgan Bank, 1948–1955. Assistant secretary of the Treasury under Wilson. Also allied with FDR and Truman.

Ken Lewis:
Chairman and CEO of Bank of America, 2001–2009.

John McCloy:
Chairman of Chase, 1953–1960. Chairman of Council on Foreign Relations, 1953–1970. President of the World Bank, 1947–1949. Assistant secretary of war during FDR years. US high commissioner to Germany, 1949–1952. Served on Warren Commission after JFK assassination. Involved with “Seven Sisters” oil companies.

Hugh McColl:
Chairman and CEO of Bank of America (having engineered its merger with NationsBank and many others), 1983–2001. Allied with Clinton.

Charles Mitchell:
Chairman of National City Bank, 1929–1933. Allied with Coolidge.

George Moore:
President of First National City Bank, 1959–1967. Chairman of National City Bank, 1967–1970. Mentor to Walter Wriston.

Jack “J. P.” Morgan (J. P. Morgan Jr.):
Head of the Morgan Bank, 1913–1943. Allied with Wilson for war financing effort in World War I. Supported FDR.

John Pierpont “J. P.” Morgan:
Head of the Morgan Bank, 1893–1913. Sponsored Jekyll Island meeting in 1910. Butted heads with Theodore Roosevelt over trustbusting.

James “Jim” Perkins:
Chairman of National City Bank, 1933–1940. Ally of FDR and proponent of Glass-Steagall Act.

Rudolph Peterson:
President and CEO of Bank of America, 1963–1969.

John Reed:
Chairman of Citicorp and postmerger Citigroup, 1984–2000. Protégé of Walter Wriston. Allied with Carter, George H. W. Bush, and Clinton.

Gordon Rentschler:
Chairman of National City Bank, 1940–1948. Allied with Truman.

David Rockefeller:
Chairman of Chase, 1969–1981. Chairman of Council on Foreign Relations, 1970–1985. Allied with (and adversary of) JFK. Also allied with LBJ, Nixon, and Ford. Allied and clashed with Carter on Iran hostage situation after pushing for the Shah to enter the United States.

James Stillman Rockefeller:
Chairman of National City Bank, 1959–1967 (joined the bank in 1930). Allied with Eisenhower.

John D. Rockefeller:
Founder with his brother, William Rockefeller, and head of the Standard Oil Company (1870–1897). With William, also formed a financial alliance with National City Bank.

James Stillman:
President of National City Bank, 1891–1908. Remained chairman of the bank until 1918. Early proponent of international banking expansion. Allied with the Rockefeller brothers and Wilson.

John Thain:
Goldman Sachs copresident, 1999–2004. President of the New York Stock Exchange, 2004–2007. Head of Merrill Lynch, 2007–2009.

Frank Vanderlip:
Vice president, then president, of National City Bank, 1909–1919. Assistant secretary of the Treasury under McKinley. Worked with Nelson Aldrich on Aldrich plan. Early friend of Wilson, later distant.

Dennis Weatherstone III:
Chairman of J. P. Morgan (and knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1990), 1990–1994. Advocate for dialing back Glass-Steagall.

Sandy Weill:
Chairman of Citigroup, 2000–2006. Orchestrated final push to repeal Glass-Steagall after career of acquisitions that pushed its boundaries.

Sidney Weinberg:
Leader of Goldman Sachs, 1930–1969. Helped finance FDR’s election. Close to FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, and Nixon.

George Whitney:
Chairman of the Morgan Bank, 1950–1955. Joined Morgan in 1915. Progressive banker, allied with Eisenhower.

Albert “Al” Wiggin:
Chairman of Chase, 1917–1933. Helped establish the Bank for International Settlements in 1930.

Walter Wriston:
Chairman of National City Bank (which was renamed Citicorp/Citibank in 1974), 1970–1984. Allied with LBJ, Nixon, and Ford.

Attendees at the Jekyll Island meeting in 1910 where the Aldrich plan (Federal Reserve core) was created:

Nelson Aldrich:
Rhode Island senator. Allied with J. P. Morgan, the Rockefellers, and President Taft.

Abraham Piatt Andrew:
Assistant secretary of the Treasury.

Henry Davison:
Senior partner at J. P. Morgan.

Benjamin Strong:
Head of J. P. Morgan Bankers Trust Company. Later served as first head of New York Fed.

Frank Vanderlip:
(Noted earlier, in Bankers.)

Paul Warburg:
Partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Company. Representative of Rothschild banking dynasty in England and France. Later appointed by Wilson to Federal Reserve Board.

The Original 1929 “Big Six”

George Baker Jr.:
Vice chairman, First National Bank

Thomas Lamont:
Acting head of the Morgan Bank

Charles Mitchell:
Chairman, National City Bank

William Potter:
President, Guaranty Trust Company

Seward Prosser:
Chairman, Bankers Trust Company

Albert Wiggin:
Chairman, Chase National Bank

Key Political Officials

Nelson Aldrich:
Rhode Island senator, 1881–1911. Head of National Monetary Commission, 1908–1911. Integrated with Rockefeller family through progeny.

Ben Bernanke:
Chairman of the Federal Reserve, 2006–2013.

C. Douglas Dillon:
Treasury secretary, 1961–1965. Chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation, 1972–1975.

Henry “Joe” Fowler:
Treasury secretary, 1965–1968. Partner at Goldman Sachs, 1969–1999.

Timothy Geithner:
President of the New York Fed, 2003–2009. Treasury secretary, 2009–2013.

Carter Glass:
US representative from Virginia, 1902–1919. Senator, 1920–1946. Led Senate committee to adopt plan that became the Federal Reserve Act. Treasury secretary, 1918–1920, coauthor Glass-Steagall Act.

Alan Greenspan:
Chairman of the Federal Reserve, 1987–2006. Major proponent and enabler of banking deregulation.

Colonel Edward House:
Friend, confidant, and unofficial adviser to Wilson.

George Humphrey:
Treasury secretary, 1953–1957. Honorary board chairman of the McHanna Company, 1957–1969.

Jack Lew:
Director of the Office of Management and Budget, 1998–2001, 2010–2012. Citigroup banker, 2006–2008. Treasury secretary, 2013–present.

William Gibbs McAdoo:
Son-in-law of Wilson. Treasury secretary, 1913–1918.

Gates McGarrah:
First chairman of New York Fed, 1925–1930. Executive Committee chairman of Chase, 1926–1930. First head of Bank for International Settlements, 1930–1933.

Andrew William Mellon:
Treasury secretary, 1921–1932. Prominent banker, industrialist, philanthropist, and art collector.

Henry Morgenthau:
Treasury secretary, 1934–1945.

Henry “Hank” Paulson:
CEO and chairman of Goldman Sachs, 1999–2006. Treasury secretary, 2006–2009.

Donald Regan:
Treasury secretary, 1981–1985. Chief of staff, 1985–1987. Chairman of Merrill Lynch, 1971–1980.

Robert Rubin:
Cochairman of Goldman Sachs, 1990–1992. Treasury secretary, 1995–1999. First director of National Economic Council, 1993–1995. Often appeared before Congress on behalf of banking deregulation. Joined Citigroup in October 1999, after Glass-Steagall repeal was passed by the Senate. Chairman of Citigroup, November 4–December 11, 2007. Chairman of Council of Foreign Relations, 2007–present.

John Snyder:
Longtime friend to Truman. Treasury secretary, 1946–1953. First president of the National Advisory Council to International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, 1946–1953.

George Shultz:
Treasury secretary, 1982–1989. Executive vice president, then president, at Bechtel, 1974–1982. Rejoined as adviser in 1989.

Larry Summers:
Treasury secretary, 1999–2001. Present at signing of Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which killed Glass-Steagall.

Paul Volcker:
Chairman of the Federal Reserve, 1979–1987. Vice president at Chase, 1957–1962, 1965–1969. Undersecretary of monetary affairs in Treasury Department, 1963–1965, 1969–1974.

PREFACE

T
HE IDEA FOR
A
LL THE
P
RESIDENTS
’ B
ANKERS
CAME TO ME WHILE
I
WAS WRITING A
historical novel called
Black Tuesday,
which follows the events leading up to the Crash of 1929 through the eyes of an immigrant girl who crosses paths with the bankers of the House of Morgan.

The book contains a scene based on a real meeting of the period’s most powerful bankers that took place on Black Thursday. With the markets in chaos, Thomas Lamont, acting head of the Morgan Bank while Jack Morgan was in Britain, summoned the leaders of the five other major banks, most of which were intricately linked to Morgan through social and business connections. Collectively the “Big Six,” as they were dubbed, took less than half an hour to decide to pool their banks’ money to save the markets—and themselves—from their own recklessness and fraudulent behavior.

Fast-forward to the financial crisis of 2008. The prelude to the global debacle was similar, as the chapters on the 1920s and 1930s reveal. The men and their instruments of financial destruction were different only in certain specifics paralleling the complexity and technology of the times. More recently, though, it was the federal government and Federal Reserve that bailed out these top bankers in epic ways. Again, six main bankers steered the process. Most of them represented the corporate lineage of the bankers from that earlier meeting in October 1929. I became fascinated with their evolution.

But the impact of those Big Six on America stretched back even further.

These men also had ties to bankers from the late 1880s, especially J. P. Morgan, who expanded his fortune then. They participated in the Panic of 1907; they or their representatives met at Jekyll Island to create the Federal Reserve, which would back them in future panics; and they financed, and profited from, World War I.

Between the Crash of 1929 and 2008, these bankers reigned over America as monarchical rather than democratically elected leaders. Through the Great Depression, World War II, the establishment of the World Bank and IMF, the Cold War, and the financial and military expansion of the United States, Wall Street and the White House collaborated to shape national policy. To this day these elite bankers drive our financial systems, even if the men who rise to the top of their firms and dominate politics in any given period are largely interchangeable.

The political and financial alliances between bankers and presidents and their cabinets defined, and continue to define, the policies and laws that drive the economy. My research shows that the revolving doors between public and private service weren’t created in the 1980s, as many more recent works claim. They were always present.