To Washington D.C.
Business travel was a frequent occurrence, to which my family was well accustomed. In those days, to fly First Class from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. on PanAm, was to know a degree of pleasure in air travel. How to justify my absence from the family at Christmas-time would not be a pleasant prospect; so for the moment I merely hinted at the possibility to my wife, then packed a bag and took off the next morning.
Cutler and Pickering was - and still is - a very prestigious law firm in the District of Columbia. Lloyd N. Cutler, Yale Law School, 1939, Editor of his law Journal, was already a prominent figure on the Washington scene. He wasted no time in filing me in on the details of the proposed venture, and emphasized the extremely sensitive nature of the assignment. He revealed that some members of the Penn Central's board had put funds into an account in a Bank in Zurich and signing authority for these would be mine to do with as I saw fit.
Mentally I rolled this nugget of fiscal largesse around in my mind as he went on:
“The primary holdout is a Doctor Lauder. He bought the notes and now feels he was cheated by the company. The other holdout is a Herr Schneider, who says he will do whatever Lauder does. Schroders Bank have asked Lauder if he would meet with you on December 27th. He has agreed, but is telling them it will do no good, as he has made up his mind not to sign.”
“Do realize, if any of the other note-holders were to discover that Lauder was being paid, it would no doubt produce chaos as they would all want to be paid. We dare not even let Schroders know what is being done. In fact, when you leave my office, I don’t want to know what you plan to do.”
Plan, I didn’t have a plan, not yet anyway. However the tantalizing prospect of convincing a singularly reluctant note-holder to put pen-to-paper was as intriguing a challenge as I’d yet encountered. Only after I had taken the measure of this Dr. Lauder would I be able to create some sort of inducement. Perhaps.
Lloyd Cutler stood up. “Here are the papers for Lauder and Schneider to sign. After they have been executed, deliver them to Schroders and let me know it has been accomplished. Believe me, everyone appreciates your accepting this assignment. Good luck, and please give my thanks to Harry Volk.”