Iacocca

WASHINGTON -- Former Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca tears into the Bush administration and the U.S. auto industry in a new book, saying America's political leaders have failed the nation and urging voters to pick more carefully next year. Iacocca, 82, who was urged to run for president in the 1980s after turning Chrysler around, says he's for higher federal fuel-economy standards, warns that Chrysler could become a "shattered remnant" if sold and offers suggestions for Detroit's automakers to turn their businesses around.

The old cliche "you can't take it with you" has a painful new meaning for Lee Iacocca, one that could cost the former chairman and chief executive of Chrysler Corp. nearly $32 million.Chrysler's board, angered at his alliance with Kirk Kerkorian's attempt to take over the automaker, has refused to allow Mr. Iacocca to exercise stock options he received after retiring from Chrysler in 1992, the company said in a document filed yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.According to the filing, the directors determined that Mr. Iacocca violated the terms of the stock option plan by assisting Mr. Kerkorian, the company's largest shareholder, in his recent failed takeover bid for the company and in a subsequent offer for Chrysler shares that Mr. Kerkorian announced last month.

What Clinton took from the Arkansas poultry king was chicken feed.Ross Perot for Veep on the Lee Iacocca ticket!George found the way to balance the budget some day: Make the states pay for everything.The good news is that Albania overthrew the Communists. The bad news is Albania.

Iacocca may fly to TWA's rescueLee A. Iacocca, who helped Chrysler Corp. get back on its feet when it reached the brink of financial ruin, is being asked to do something similar for Trans World Airlines, which is in bankruptcy.Since August, the 68-year-old Mr. Iacocca, who plans to retire from Chrysler at month's end, has been talking with Brian Freeman, an investment banker whom he got to know during the days of Chrysler's rescue through federal loan guarantees, about assuming the chairmanship of TWA. Mr. Iacocca met yesterday with leaders of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in an effort on his part to see if he wants the job.Ford to weigh non-cash chargeFord Motor Co.'s board of directors is expected to decide today whether to book a non-cash charge of $5 billion to $9 billion for retiree health care benefit accounting changes in the fourth quarter.

HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. -- Chrysler Corp. ended its long battle with dissident shareholder Kirk Kerkorian by agreeing yesterday to put a Kerkorian ally on the board and to step up its stock repurchase program.In return, the 78-year-old Las Vegas billionaire agreed not to raise his stake in the company for at least five years.Chrysler also formally adopted an "anti-greenmail" policy banning the payment of a premium for shares held by hostile holders in an effort to silence them.Mr. Kerkorian's critics, including Chrysler executives at times, have contended that his intent all along was to have Chrysler buy him out so he could pocket a big profit.

Official allegedly helped Neil BushA top White House official during the Bush administration intervened in a government investigation of Neil Bush, the president's son, according to L. William Seidman, former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Neil Bush was investigated by the Office of Thrift Supervision on charges of conflict of interest stemming from his role as a director of Silverado Banking, Savings & Loan Association.Mr. Seidman wrote in a forthcoming book that in 1990 the FDIC's general counsel came to his office and said White House counsel Boyden Gray "has a question about the Neil Bush matter."

IN THE FIRST MONTHS of 1981, the American automobile industry, as Motor Trend magazine put it, was in the "throes of a grand pirouette." Still reeling from the 1974 oil embargo and subsequent "energy crisis," Detroit was rapidly phasing out its gas-guzzlers and replacing them with more fuel-efficient automobiles.January marked the 10th anniversary of the debut of the car that became synonymous with America's firm commitment to economy: the Chrysler K-car. Although the first Ks rolled off the assembly lines in late 1980, it was in January of 1981 that the car had its formal coming-out, making the January front covers of both Consumer Reports and Motor Trend.

With all the subtlety Commodore Matthew Perry displayed in 1853 as he sailed into Tokyo Bay with a quarter of the U.S. Navy and a letter of friendship from Millard Fillmore, President Bush has arrived in Japan proclaiming: "I come as a friend."Like President Fillmore, Mr. Bush wants to pry open the Japanese market. He is not relying on gunboats but on 21 American corporation chiefs, including the bosses of the Detroit Big Three whose companies have been clobbered by Japanese competitors turning out cars Americans love to buy."

When taxpayers bailed out Chrysler Corp. in 1980, CEO Lee Iacocca acknowledged the extraordinary assistance with a sacrifice of his own. He cut his salary to a dollar a year and trimmed other executives' pay by up to a tenth. "Although my reduced salary didn't mean I had to skip any meals, it still made a big statement in Detroit," Iacocca wrote in his autobiography. "It showed that we were all in this together. It showed that we could survive only if each of us tightened his belt." Now, as the government launches a rescue a thousand times bigger, similar gestures are hard to find.

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- When Robert L. Nardelli was sent packing from Home Depot in January with a $210 million exit package and a reputation as an imperial chief executive who made strategic blunders, he seemed tarnished forever. But that's not the way some big investors see him. To them, he is a former operations whiz at General Electric Co. who can bring new managerial discipline to Chrysler, and make the struggling Detroit automaker hum again. And so, in being named chief executive yesterday at Chrysler LLC by its new owners - the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management - Nardelli, 59, is being given the chance to try to bring off two comebacks: Chrysler's and his own. "It's an amazing redemption," said Michael Useem, professor of management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.