Wriston: Man with the Needle

As bankers across the U.S. ponder a possibly troubled future, they inevitably look for leadership to the Manhattan-headquartered First National City Bank. By embarking upon one daring innovation after another, Citibank has indisputably established itself as the premier pacesetter of U.S. banking. The man who charts Citibank's bold course is a tall, sinewy iconoclast named Walter Bigelow Wriston. An uncommon blend of hard-driving executive and reflective, sometimes cynical intellectual, Chairman Wriston arguably exerts greater influence on American financial methods and mores than any other banker--and perhaps even more than all of them combined.

Wriston, 56, provokes both fierce loyalty and fierce hate. The loyalties come from those at Citibank who are inspired by his drive and vision, which have made the bank among the most envied in the world. The hates spring from Wriston's sharp tongue, which lashes at almost everyone in sight. Even one of his admirers formerly at Citibank says, with only slight exaggeration: "He is arrogant, flip and runs the place with a needle. Every comment is a wise-ass remark."

Not much of Wriston's wit seems funny in print: the effect of his remarks depends heavily on the arched eyebrow and quizzical expression accompanying them--and on a thorough knowledge of the context. Discussing the Penn Central's default on bank loans, he once quipped that the railroad's management "couldn't be equated with Boy Scouts"--a crack that can be fully appreciated only by someone who knows that the line's officers and directors agreed to an out-of-court settlement on shareholders' charges of fiscal mismanagement. Faced once by contradictory accusations from Ralph Nader that Citibank was being too stingy in lending to the poor and at the same time luring the poor into debt over their heads, Wriston asked dryly:

"Do I have a third choice?"

No one has done more than Wriston to spur banking into aggressive expansion, and he is totally unapologetic about that course. If banks had not made unconventional loans, he says, the post-World War II explosion of world trade could not have occurred, and the past U.S. recession would have been worse than it was. Says he: "If we didn't want any loan losses tomorrow, theoretically I suppose we could pull out of all marginal situations. But I don't think that would be very good for society."

Wriston directs his fast-growing bank from a tapestried office on the 15th floor of Citibank's home office at 399 Park Avenue. He relaxes by spending weekends on his Connecticut farm with his lovely second wife, Kathryn Ann.

Symbolic of Wriston's team approach to problem solving, his desk is actually a wooden round table to which his key subordinates are frequently invited to draw up chairs for long and probing conversations.

Though demanding and autocratic, Wriston gives his subordinates wide latitude for initiative, and he has assembled what is generally regarded as the finest talent in the banking industry.

Most of them are young and fit Wriston's own mold--aggressive, bright, questing. Many of the most promising were recruited outside the banking field, largely from high-powered, consumer-oriented corporations.

While his men charge around the world in search of new loan opportunities, Wriston spends part of his time seeking to enlighten the public and Government in speeches and papers. His confident grasp of world trends and his wry wit make him a refreshingly able advocate. At the height of the Arab oil embargo, Wriston reminded a blue-ribbon Detroit audience that whale oil, once one of the nation's chief means of lighting, doubled in price during the Civil War only to disappear from the market later as lower-priced kerosene usurped its role.

Wriston's chief target is Government interference in the economy, which he believes has ruined or distorted every industry it has touched. Says he: "Shortages become a crisis when Government intervenes to frustrate the ability of the free market to function."

He also argues that creeping Government regulation will ultimately erode personal civil liberties in the U.S.: "History confirms that when a citizen loses his economic freedom, he ultimately loses his political freedom as well."

"One's life is a series of accidents," muses Wriston, reflecting on how he got into banking. The son of Henry M. Wriston, former president of Brown University and a State Department adviser, Walter Wriston took a master's degree at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and passed the exams to become a State Department officer. But during World War II he was drafted and ended up a Signal Corps officer in the Philippines.

Taking the facetious advice of a family doctor, he went into banking in 1946, landing a $2,800-a-year job as a junior inspector at Citibank's old Wall Street headquarters.

A few years later, says Wriston, "my dart hit the board." George Moore, Citibank's great postwar expansionist, picked the young Wriston to direct the important European operation. Wriston was so successful that within three years he was heading the bank's entire foreign operations. From then on, there was little doubt that the brash young Wriston would some day boss the bank.

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