Volume 18, Number 6 · April 6, 1972
I.F. Stone Reports: Behind the ITT Scandal
By I.F. Stone
Bribery comes naturally to conglomerates. These giant holding companies, like ITT, sprawling all over the business map, expand by one form of bribery or another, some more or less legitimate, some just plain garden-variety odoriferous. In the former category was the half-billion-dollar premium[1] ITT dangled before Hartford Fire Insurance Company stockholders to get control of that company's fat cash surpluses. In the latter category were the profitable stock options and favorable employment contracts promised Hartford management by ITT to win their approval for a merger; these so 'troubled' the Connecticut Insurance Commissioner, William R. Cotter, that he at first vetoed the acquisition, on the ground that these favors created a 'conflict of interest.' The corruption of management to facilitate corporate takeovers appears over and over again in the comprehensive but little noticed report on conglomerates filed by a House Judiciary subcommittee on anti-trust last September 7.[2]
Feature, 4213 words
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