DAVIS PUSHED HIS glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and read the advertisement in the Business Section of the Boston Globe again, to make sure he was not dreaming. It could have been tailormade for him:
Oil Company based in Great Britain, carrying out extensive work in the North Sea off Scotland, requires a young executive with experience in the stock market and/or financial marketing. Salary $25,000 a year. Accommodation supplied. Based in London. Apply Box No. 217A.
Knowing it could lead to other openings in an expanding industry, David thought it sounded like a challenge and wondered if they would consider him experienced enough. He recalled what his tutor in European affairs used to say: “If you must work in Great Britain, better make it the North Sea. With their union problems, there’s nothing else great about the country.”
David Kesler was a lean, clean-shaven young American, with a crew cut which would have been better suited to a lieutenant in the Marines, a fresh complexion and an unquenchable earnestness. David wanted to succeed in business with all the fervor of the new Harvard Business School graduate. He had spent six years in all at Harvard, the first four studying mathematics for his Bachelor degree, and the last two across the Charles River at the Business School. Recently graduated and armed with a B.A. and an M.B.A., he was looking for a job that would reward him for the exceptional capacity for hard work he knew he possessed. Never a brilliant scholar, he envied those natural academics among his classmates who mastered post-Keynesian economic theories like children learning their multiplication tables. David had worked ferociously for six years, only lifting his nose far enough from the grindstone to fit in a daily workout at the gymnasium and the occasional weekend watching Harvard Jocks defending the honor of the university on the football field or on the basketball court. He would have enjoyed playing himself, but that would have meant less time for study.
He read the advertisement again, and then typed a carefully prepared letter to the box number. A few days passed before a reply came, summoning him for an interview at a local hotel on the following Wednesday at 3:00.
David arrived at 2:45 P.M. at the Copley Hotel on Huntingdon Avenue, the adrenaline pumping through his body. He repeated the Harvard Business School motto to himself as he was ushered into a small private room: look British, think Yiddish.
Three men, who introduced themselves as Silverman, Cooper and Elliott, interviewed him. Bernie Silverman, a short, gray-haired, check-tied New Yorker with a solid aura of success, was in charge. Cooper and Elliott sat and watched David silently.
Silverman spent a considerable time giving David an enticing description of the company’s background and its future aims. Harvey had trained Silverman carefully and he had at his well-manicured fingertips all the glib expertise needed by the right-hand man in a Metcalfe coup.
“So there you have it, Mr. Kesler. We’re involved in one of the biggest commercial opportunities in the world, drilling for oil in the North Sea off Scotland. Our company, Prospecta Oil, has the backing of a group of banks in America. We have been granted licenses from the British Government and we have the financing. But companies are made not by money, Mr. Kesler, but by people—it’s as simple as that. We’re looking for a man who will work night and day to help put Prospecta Oil on the map, and we’ll pay the right man a top salary to do just that. If we offer you the position, you’ll be working in our London office under the immediate direction of our Managing Director, Mr. Elliott.”
“Where are the company headquarters?”
“New York, but we have offices in Montreal, San Francisco, London, Aberdeen, Paris and Brussels.”
“Is the company looking for oil anywhere else?”
“Not at the moment,” answered Silverman. “We’re sinking millions into the North Sea after B.P.’s successful strike, and the fields around us have so far had a one-in-five success ratio, which is very high in our business.”
“When would you want the successful applicant to start?”
“Some time in January, when he’s completed a government training course on management in oil,” said Richard Elliott. The slim, sallow No. 2 sounded as if he was from Georgia. The government course was a typical Harvey Metcalfe touch—maximum credibility for minimum expense.
“And the company apartment,” said David, “where’s that?”
Cooper spoke:
“You’ll have one of the company flats in the Barbican, a few hundred yards away from our London City office.”
David had no more questions—Silverman had covered everything and seemed to know exactly what he wanted.
Ten days later David received a telegram inviting him to join Silverman for lunch at the 21 Club in New York. When David arrived at the restaurant, he recognized a host of well-known faces at nearby tables and felt new confidence: his host obviously knew what he was about. Their table was in one of the small alcoves selected by businessmen who prefer their conversations to remain confidential.
Silverman was genial and relaxed. He stretched the conversation out a little, discussing irrelevancies, but finally, over a brandy, offered David the position in London. David was delighted: $25,000 a year, and the chance to be involved with a company which obviously had such an exciting future. He did not hesitate in agreeing to start his new appointment in London on January 1st.
David Kesler had never been to England before: how green the grass was, how narrow the roads, how closed in by hedges and fences were the houses! It felt like Toy Town after the vast highways and large automobiles of New York. The small flat in the Barbican was clean and impersonal and, as Mr. Cooper had said, convenient for the office a few hundred yards away in Threadneedle Street.
Prospecta’s offices consisted of seven rooms on one floor of a large Victorian building; Silverman’s was the only office with a prestigious air about it. There was a tiny reception area, a telex room, two rooms for secretaries, a larger room for Mr. Elliott and another small one for himself. It seemed very poky to David, but as Silverman was quick to point out, office rent in the City of London was $30 a square foot compared with $10 in New York.
Bernie Silverman’s secretary, Judith Lampson, ushered David through to the well-appointed office of the Chief Executive. Silverman sat in a large black swivel chair behind a massive desk, which made him look like a midget. By his side were positioned four telephones, three white and one red. David was later to learn that
the important-looking red telephone was directly connected to a number in the States, but he never actually discovered to whom.
“Good morning, Mr. Silverman. Where would you like me to start?”
“Bernie, please call me Bernie. Take a seat. Notice the change in the price of the company’s shares in the last few days?”
“Oh, yes,” enthused David. “Up a half to nearly $6. I suppose it’s because of our new bank backing and the other companies’ successful strikes?”
“No,” said Silverman in a low tone designed to give the impression that no one else must hear this part of the conversation, “the truth is that we’ve made a big strike ourselves, but we haven’t yet decided when to announce it. It’s all in this geologist’s report.” He threw a smart, colorful document over his desk.
David whistled under his breath. “What are the company’s plans at the moment?”