Serpent on the Rock by Kurt Eichenwald

for cash, Harold successfully beat Jules’s posthumous effort to kill the firm. In a little more than a year, he had raised more than $4 million in capital from seven new general partners and six new limited partners.
    Finally Harold rid the firm of the influence of the man who so mistreated him. In one last flourish, he banished his uncle’s name, reorganizing J. S. Bache into Bache & Company. For years to come, the only remnant of Jules Bache would be on incoming mail incorrectly addressed to the old name. Each time one of those letters crossed Harold’s desk, he took out his pen and scratched out the offending “J. S.”
    Harold proved adept at steering the firm. Over the next twenty years, its influence surpassed what it had under his uncle’s guidance. He committed himself to a philosophy of constant, unrelenting growth. His dream, recited often to his friends and partners, was to build a brokerage even bigger than Wall Street’s giant, Merrill Lynch. He never succeeded, but not for lack of effort—in a little more than two decades, the number of Bache employees grew from 1,800 to almost 6,000.
    Every day, Harold awoke at 6:00 A.M. at his duplex apartment on Park Avenue and was whisked downtown forty-five minutes later by the same taxicab. He arrived at his desk by 7:15, long before the 9:30 opening bell of the stock market, a habit that won him the nickname in the newspapers of “the man who opens Wall Street.” From his office just off the firm’s entryway, Harold kept a steady eye on the stream of Bache executives arriving each morning, greeting them as they walked down the firm’s red-carpeted corridor. He frequently wandered about the offices, stopping to ask each man about his job and his life. Sometimes he would relive his days in the marines, rolling up his sleeves to talk battlefield tactics and tell war stories with other veterans.
    Such strategizing proved useful in managing Bache, where life grew increasingly treacherous. While Harold’s decision to bring in new partners saved the firm, it also created an environment where the intense political maneuvering never ended. With the new capital, his ownership stake in Bache was only about 10 percent. Any of Harold’s new partners could throw the firm into disarray by withdrawing their money. Since, for many, that investment composed much of their personal wealth, they wanted as much say in the firm’s management as Harold himself.
    To keep everyone happy, Harold blurred lines of authority, leaving no one with the power for final decision making. Anyone who gained authority was viewed as a threat by the others and toppled from power. No one could afford to lose any political strength, so no one could gain any. Harold became a master manipulator of Bache’s fragile egos. With so much infighting, a strong management team couldn’t develop; Bache was transformed into a haven for Wall Street’s mediocrities.
    Titles became virtually meaningless, as they were transformed into symbols of ego gratification rather than descriptions of responsibility. By the 1960s, more than seventy vice-presidents roamed the halls of Bache, and all of them jealously guarded whatever small power they might have. The thick bureaucracy slowed the firm’s responses and destroyed managers unwilling to play Bache’s politics of appeasement.
    By 1968, Bache was in the same shape it had been in when Jules died: one person in control, and no designated successor. With prodding from his longtime partners, Harold, then seventy-three, finally agreed to name a new Bache president. He picked Harry Jacobs, the head of the firm’s syndicate department, and planned to announce his decision in April.
    The announcement never came. On March 15, 1968, Harold’s driver arrived as always at the Bache Park Avenue home at 6:45 for the morning trip downtown. Unlike most days, Harold was not waiting for him. The driver knocked on