Strong Medicine (30 page)

"No need to," Andrew reassured her. "There was a moment when I felt like

doing the same thing. But you were the one who happened to have a shoe

handy. Besides, my aim isn't nearly as good as yours."

Celia shook her head. "Don't joke about it."

It was then that Bruce, who had been silent through the meal, spoke up

and asked, "Will you get a divorce now?" His small, serious face was

tightly set, reflecting worry, making it clear the question had been

weighing on him for some time.

Andrew was about to answer flippantly when Celia stopped him with a

gesture. "Brucie," she said gently, "I promise and swear to you that as

long as your father and I live, that will never happen."

"That goes for me too," Andrew added, and their son's face lighted up in

a radiant smile, as did Lisa's beside him.

"I'm glad," Bruce said simply, and it seemed a fitting end to a nightmare

which was past.

There were other, happier journeys the family shared during the lustrum

spent by Celia with International Sales. As to Celia's career, the period

proved overall successful, enhancing her reputation

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at Felding-Roth headquarters. She even, despite opposition within the

company, managed to achieve some headway in having the labeling of

Felding-Roth drugs sold in Latin America come closer to the precise

standards required by law in the United States. However, as she admitted

frankly to Andrew, the progress was "not much."

"The day will come," Celia predicted, "when someone will bring this whole

subject out into the open. Then, either new laws or public opinion will

compel us to do what we should have been doing all along. But that time

isn't yet."

An idea whose time had come was encountered by Celia in Peru. There, a

large part of the Felding-Roth sales force was composed of women. The

reason, Celia learned, was not liberation; it was sales. In Peru it is

considered rude to keep a woman waiting; therefore in doctors' office-,

detail women were ushered into a doctor's presence quickly, ahead of male

competitors who might have to wait for hours.

The discovery prompted a long memorandum from Celia to Sam Hawthorne urging

recruitment of more detail women on FeldingRoth's U.S. sales force for the

same reason. "I remember from my own time as a detail woman," Celia wrote,

"that while sometimes I had to wait to see doctors, at other times they saw

me quickly, and I think it was because I was a woman, so why not use that

to our advantage?"

In a subsequent discussion Sam put the question: "Isn't what you're

suggesting a way of advancing women for the wrong reason? That's not

women's lib. That's just using women's femininity."

"And why not?" Celia shot back. "Men have used their masculinity for

centuries, often to women's disadvantage, so it's our turn now. Anyway, man

or woman, we're all entitled to make the most of what we have."

In the end, Celia's memo was taken seriously and began a process in

Felding-Roth which, during the years that followed, was copied

enthusiastically by other drug houses.

And during all this time, beyond the pharmaceutical business, outside

events marched on. The tragedy of Vietnam was taking shape and worsening,

with young Americans-the cream of a generation-being slain by tiny people

in black pajamas, and no one really knowing why. A rock-music cult called

"Woodstock Nation" flared briefly, then burned out. In Czechoslovakia the

Soviet Union brutally extinguished freedom. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,

and

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Robert Kennedy were savagely assassinated. Nixon became President, Golda

Meir prime minister of Israel. Jackie Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis.

Eisenhower died. Kissinger went to China, Armstrong to the moon, Edward

Kennedy to Chappaquiddick.

Then, in February 1972, Sam Hawthorne, at age fifty-one, became president

and chief executive officer of Felding-Roth. His accession to power was

sudden, and occurred at a difficult, critical period in the company's

history.

Sam Hawthorne, in the jargon of the times, was a Renaissance man. He had

a multiplicity of interests, indoors and out, intellectual and athletic.

He was at heart a scholar who, despite heavy involvement in business,

managed to keep alive a lifelong, well-informed love of literature, art

and music. In foreign cities, no matter how great the pressures of work

Sam would somehow find time to visit bookstores, galleries and concerts.

In painting he favored the Impressionists, inclining to Monet and

Pissarro. In sculpture his great love was Rodin. Lilian Hawthorne once

told a friend that in Paris, in the garden of the Rodin Museum, she had

seen her husband stand silent for fifteen minutes contemplating "The

Burghers of Calais," much of the time with tears in his eyes.

In music, Sam's passion was Mozart. A proficient pianist himself, though

not a brilliant one, he liked to have a piano in his hotel suite while

on trips and play something from Mozart, perhaps the Sonata No. I I in

A-the grave and clear Andante, the quickening Menuetto, and finally the

joyous Turkish Rondo, sending his spirits soaring after a tiring day.

The fact that he had a piano in what was usually a luxury suite was

because he paid for such things himself. He could afford to. Sam was

independently wealthy and owned a substantial amount of Felding-Roth

stock, having inherited it from his mother who died when he was young.

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His mother had been a Roth, and Sam was the last member of either the

Felding or Roth clan to be involved in company management. Not that his

family connections had made much, if any, difference to his career; they

hadn't, particularly as he neared the top. What Sam had achieved was

through ability and integrity, and the fact was widely recognized.

At home, Sam and Lilian Hawthorne's marriage was solid and both adored

Juliet, now fifteen and apparently unspoiled despite the adoration.

In athletics Sam had been a long-distance runner in college and still

enjoyed an tarly morning run several times a week. He was an enthusiastic

and fairly successful tennis player, though the enthusiasm was stronger

than his style. Sam's greatest asset on the court was a vicious volley

at the net, making him a popular doubles partner.

But dominating all outside interests, sporting or cerebral, was the fact

that Sam Hawthorne was an Anglophile.

For as long as he could remember he had loved visiting England, and felt

an admiration and affinity for most things English-traditions, language,

education, humor, style, the monarchy, London, the countryside, classic

cars. In line with the last preference, he owned and drove to work each

day a superb silver-gray Rolls-Bentley.

Something else that held Sam's high opinion was British-not just

English-science, and it was this conviction that prompted an original,

daring proposal during the opening months of his FeldingRoth presidency.

In a confidential, written submission to the board of directors he set

out some stark, unpleasant facts.

"In drug research and production--our raison detre--our company is in a

barren, dispiriting period which has extended far beyond the 'flat spell'

experienced by this industry generally. Our last major breakthrough was

with Lotromycin, nearly fifteen years ago. Since then, while competitors

have introduced major, successful new drugs, we have had only minor ones.

Nor do we have anything startling in sight.

"All this has had a depressing effect on our company's reputation and

morale. Equally depressing has been the effect on finances. It is the

reason we reduced our dividend last year, an action which caused the

value of our stock to plummet, and it is still out of favor with

investors.

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"We have begun internal belt tightening, but this is not enough. In two

to three years, if we fail to produce a strong, positive program for the

future we will face a financial crisis of the gravest kind."

What Sam did not say was that his predecessor as president and CEO, who

had been dismissed after a confrontation with the board, had followed a

top-level policy of "drift" which, in large part, had reduced

Felding-Roth Pharmaceuticals to its present sorry state.

Instead, and having set the stage, Sam moved on to his proposal.

"I strongly and urgently recommend," he wrote, "that we create a

Felding-Roth Research Institute in Britain. The institute would be headed

by a topflight British scientist. It would be independent of our research

activities in the United States."

After more details he added, "I profoundly believe the new suggested

research arm would strengthen our most critical resource area and hasten

discovery of the important new drugs our company so desperately needs."

Why Britain?

Anticipating the question, Sam proceeded to answer it.

"Traditionally, through centuries, Britain has been a world leader in

basic scientific research. Within this century alone, consider some of

the great discoveries which were British in origin and which changed our

way of life dramatically-penicillin, television, modem radar, the

airplane jet engine, to name just four.

"Of course," Sam pointed out, "it was American companies which developed

those inventions and reaped commercial benefits -this because of the

unique ability of Americans to develop and market, an ability the British

so often lack. But the original discoveries, in those and other

instances, were British.

"If you asked me for a reason," he continued, "I would say there are

fundamental, inherent differences between British and American higher

education. Each system has its strengths. But in Britain the differences

produce an academic and scientific curiosity unmatched elsewhere. It is

that same curiosity we can, and should, harness to our advantage."

Sam dealt at length with costs, then concluded, "It can be argued that

embarking on a major costly project at this critical time in our

company's existence is reckless and ill-advised. And, yes, a new research

institute will be a heavy financial burden. But I believe it would be

even more reckless, even more ill-advised, to continue to

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drift and not take strong, positive, daring action for the futureaction

which is needed now!"

Opposition to Sam Hawthorne's plan surfaced with astounding speed and

strength.

The proposal was, as someone put it, "scarcely out of the Xerox machine"

and beginning to circulate among company directors and a few senior

officers when Sam's telephone began ringing, the callers forceful with

objections. "Sure the Brits have had their scientific glories," one

director argued, "but nowadays American achievements far exceed them, so

your whole contention, Sam, is laughable." Others focused on-as one board

member expressed it heatedly- "the absurd and backward-looking notion of

locating a research center in an effete, run-down, has-been country."

"You'd have thought," Sam confided to Lilian a few evenings later over