Every so often, the late William Safire, a speechwriter for President Nixon and Vice President Agnew and, thereafter, an important presence on the New York Times op-ed page, wrote a column comprising multiple-choice questions about policy, politics, prognostication, and personalities. Here is a variation:
1. Who, for many years, was invariably described in the business press as a “raider” and “greenmailer”; later, as a “financier”; but, more recently, has been adorned with the Homeric epithet “shareholder activist”?
a. Ivan F. Boesky
b. George Soros
c. Pat McGurn
d. Carl Sandburg
e. Carl Icahn
2. Who was a giant among men in matters corporate?
a. Milton Berle
b. Adolf Berle
c. Og Melech Bashan
d. Og Ogleby
e. Grady Sutton
3. Which of the following would be effective as SEC chairman?
a. Jesse Livermore
b. Willie Sutton
c. Eddie Antar
d. Dennis Kozlowski
e. Joe Kennedy
4. Whose phone conversation about a takeover was famously overheard?
a. Shelley Berman
b. Shelley Winters
c. Marcel Marceau
d. Pierre Elliott Trudeau
e. Pierre Gousseland
5. Battles between Martin Lipton and Joseph Flom most resembled:
a. Robinson vs. Basilio
b. Leonard vs. Duran
c. Kasparov vs. Karpov
d. Lord Chelmsford
vs. the Zulu
e. Never heard of any of
these people
6. Which former medical student was introduced, at a security analysts' forum, as a “doctor of governology”?
a. Dr. Armand Hammer
b. Dr. Phil
c. Sam Waksal of Imclone
d. Governance theorist Prof. Lucien Bebchuk
e. Carl Icahn
7. Which of these is “an effete corps of impudent snobs” (a phrase written for Agnew by Safire)?
a. Lefty journalists and columnists
b. Right wing journalists and columnists
c. Proponents of say on pay
d. Opponents of say on pay
e. Those who eat organic arugula
8. The principal role and function of a director is to:
a. Buy stock in the company and then make damn sure the stock price goes up (a lot)
b. Never fall asleep and never say anything dumb
c. Listen and nod sympathetically whenever the CEO complains about other directors who annoy him by asking questions
d. Hold your liquor at board retreats and cocktail parties
e. Attend at least two conferences per year on “tone at the top” and “thinking outside the box”
9. A good example of one of the “nattering nabobs of negativism” (another phrase written for Agnew by Safire) is:
a. Pay czar Kenneth Feinberg
b. Pay Board czar (under Nixon) George Boldt
c. A central banker who has studied the hyperinflation of the 1920s
d. Nostradamus
e. The chief calendar maker for the Mayans
10. Audit committee members should keep in mind the fundamental principle that 2+2 =:
a. “It depends” . . . on how close the undisclosed relationship between the audit committee chairman and the CEO is
b. “It depends” . . . on the earnings guidance previously given by the CEO to Wall Street analysts
c. “It depends” . . . on how much stock board members own
d. “It depends” . . . on how many compromising photos of the audit partner the CEO has in his safe
e. “It depends”… on whether you're buying or selling. â–
Scroll down for the answers.
The author can be contacted at [email protected].
Answers: 1. e; 2. b (Comedian Milton Berle included in the possible answers for reasons legendary but not here printable); 3. All — on the “it takes a thief” theory, applied in fact to Joseph P. Kennedy, President Kennedy's father and a businessman of not wholly pristine reputation, who was appointed by FDR as SEC chairman; 4. e — Gousseland, CEO of AMAX, was overheard in the early 1980s discussing, on his car phone, an unsolicited bid from Socal; 5. c is probably the best answer because Lipton and Flom were constant opponents, as lawyers, in contested takeovers, and Kasparov and Karpov, great chess players, played many games against each other (Robinson-Basilio and Leonard-Duran refer to boxing rivalries and are also not unreasonable answers); 6. e; 7. what you will; 8. The correct answer should be “to possess character and ability and to use them in the boardroom”; 9. All; 10. None.