After Weekend of Liberty, What’s Next for Iacocca?

During this special weekend, Lido Anthony Iacocca has had his shining moment.

The 61-year-old Chrysler chairman and chief fund-raiser for the Statue of Liberty project has been front and center to watch what he has called his “labor of love”--the statue’s face lift--unveiled to the world.

Despite his controversial firing last February as head of a federally appointed commission overseeing the restoration of the statue and Ellis Island, Iacocca has retained his post as chairman of the private foundation handling the fund raising for the project and thus has been unofficial master of ceremonies for Liberty Weekend.

But perhaps more important, the Fourth of July has also marked the apex of Iacocca’s rise to national prominence, a rise that has made him the subject of both adulation and criticism.

“He’s easily in the top 10 among individuals in this country,” says an admiring Peter V. Ueberroth, commissioner of major league baseball and principal organizer of the Los Angeles Olympics. “I think his efforts with the Statue of Liberty have been exceptional. He’s mobilized literally millions of people in the project. . . . He’s a leader and an accomplisher.” Iacocca’s critics, however, believe that he has used the statue’s anniversary to fuel his own ego and possibly to set himself up as a presidential candidate.

“The extent to which he is publicly identifying himself with the Statue of Liberty is ludicrous,” says Jacob Weisberg, a writer who recently lambasted what he called the overly commercialized plans for the statue’s centennial celebration in a cover story in New Republic magazine.

“He loves publicity, he really works it,” one auto industry executive adds. “He really milked that firing from the statue commission for everything it was worth, making it seem like it was his statue.”

But despite widespread speculation that Iacocca plans to use his Liberty Weekend exposure as a base from which to catapult himself into a bid for the White House in 1988, the Fourth of July is much more likely to represent the peak of his national exposure.

To the great disappointment of some in Washington who would like to harness his celebrity and turn it into political power, Lee Iacocca should be believed when he says--over and over again--that he won’t run for President or any other public office, his closest friends and associates say.

Interview Declined

So what is next for him after Liberty Weekend?

Iacocca, who refused to be interviewed to discuss his future plans, said through a spokesman that he expects to continue doing what made him famous in the first place--run Chrysler Corp. , and then write another book after he retires when he turns 65.

In fact, he has told Chrysler executives around the country to discourage rumors of a presidential bid and even to make it clear when they meet with public officials that he has no plans to run. At the same time, he has disavowed any involvement with a fledgling “draft Iacocca” committee now being organized in Michigan and the nation’s capital. Even that group’s leaders concede that they have never talked to Iacocca.

So, despite all the speculation, despite the opinion polls showing that he could be a contender for the Democratic nomination, his friends and colleagues agree that he will stay at Chrysler. They dispute only his assertion that he will retire when he turns 65 in 1989.

“I sure think he is going to stay at Chrysler until he retires, but he likes what he does and I don’t think the curtain will come down at age 65,” notes Gerald Greenwald, chairman of Chrysler’s new Chrysler Motors subsidiary and the No. 2 man at the auto maker. “It’s become much more acceptable over the last few years for chief executive officers of major corporations to stay on after they turn 65, so I think he will remain as chairman and be deeply involved at Chrysler for many years to come.”

Adds Michigan Gov. James J. Blanchard, a close Iacocca ally: “I probably know him as well as anyone in politics, and I sincerely believe he’s not going to seek elective office. I don’t believe he covets public office. The political community doesn’t understand that, because they all do.”

Not Interested

Iacocca has also made it clear in private conversations that he has no real interest in a Cabinet-level post under a future President whose trade and fiscal policies might be more to his liking than those of Ronald Reagan.

Greenwald says Iacocca has told him that he would not accept such jobs as secretary of defense or Treasury in a future administration. While those jobs apparently interested Iacocca two or three years ago, he has soured on Washington since, especially after the furor surrounding his firing by Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel from the Statue of Liberty commission last February, his friends say.

“The thing he always says about wanting to be a domestic policy czar to cut the budget is a joke,” one says. “He knows that’s impossible. It’s just like saying, ‘If I were king, I’d do this and that.’ ”

Greenwald jokingly adds that “there’s no problem” of mounting rivalry among Chrysler executives jockeying to succeed Iacocca because “he’s never leaving.”

Indeed, Iacocca has already found a new challenge at Chrysler--a major reorganization of the company. Approved by shareholders this year, the overhaul has turned over the day-to-day running of the car business to Greenwald and Harold Sperlich, president of the Chrysler Motors auto subsidiary. While he still has the final say on all major decisions in the auto operations, the reorganization has freed Iacocca to concentrate on long-term strategy and acquisitions, Greenwald and other Chrysler executives say.

Currently, Iacocca, Chrysler Vice Chairman Bennett E. Bidwell, Robert S. Miller, chairman of Chrysler’s financial services subsidiary, and Thomas Denomme, Iacocca’s top strategic planner, are searching for a major high-technology acquisition. Chrysler executives say a major acquisition could be announced very soon, perhaps within the next few weeks or months. “There’s clearly a desire on his part to broaden the corporation,” Bidwell says.

So after the Fourth of July weekend, Iacocca will go back to the car company. He will stay with the Statue of Liberty project at least through the official centennial in October, but he remains at odds with Hodel over how to develop Ellis Island, which will be the focus of most of the restoration work after this weekend.

As a result, he is likely to ease himself out as chief fund-raiser and promoter for the project sometime next year, his friends say. “I think he’s looking forward to finishing this statue work up,” says William Fugazy, owner of a New York travel services company and one of Iacocca’s closest friends. “After that (the formal centennial in October), I think he will reduce his involvement.”

(Iacocca is, however, likely to get more involved in the Iacocca Foundation, which he set up in memory of his first wife, Mary, who died in 1983. The oldest of his two daughters, 26-year-old Kathi, is president of the New York charitable organization that intends to give funds for diabetes research and other causes.)

Still, he isn’t likely to disappear from the national scene. After the massive publicity that Iacocca has received in recent months--a guest role on “Miami Vice,” a week of interviews on “Good Morning, America,” profiles in Life, the New York Times magazine and others, a much-publicized second wedding to a New York publicist and a best-selling autobiography that just went into paperback with an initial printing of 2.5 million copies--his position as America’s best-known living industrialist seems secure.

Iacocca also has a nationally syndicated newspaper column, which he uses to set forth his views on issues such as trade and the federal budget. And Chrysler is planning a new TV commercial this fall featuring Iacocca, continuing a series that has been a major factor in propelling him onto the national stage.

An Iacocca Wine

It’s even possible to buy an Iacocca wine--a 1985 vintage Villa Nicola, a red table wine named for Iacocca’s father and produced from grapes grown at his recently acquired Tuscan estate, is being distributed on a limited basis in the Detroit area.

In fact, Iacocca has become easily recognizable worldwide, even among those who know nothing about the auto industry. His life, after all, is the classic American story of an immigrant’s son rising to the pinnacle of success.

It started in the sales department at Ford, followed by the brilliant success of the Mustang in the 1960s, the rise to the Ford presidency and his firing in 1978 after a long feud with Henry Ford II. Then came Chrysler, his greatest challenge: taking over a company on the brink of collapse, winning a federal bail-out, pleading on television for Americans to buy his cars. Finally, there was the remarkable turnaround, the early repayment of government-backed loans and the gusher of profits that followed. Union leaders at Chrysler get angry when Iacocca gets so much credit for saving Chrysler--they say the workers did more. But even industry analysts are beginning to describe him in historic terms.

“He will go down as a legend in the industry,” says Martin Anderson, a respected industry consultant. “The Chrysler turnaround is one of the major events in the American automobile industry. He’s going to be one of those names up there, maybe all the way up there with Alfred P. Sloan Jr. (architect of General Motors and ‘father’ of the modern U.S. corporation),” Anderson adds.

But friends and associates believe that there are strong personal reasons why Iacocca won’t use his current respect and popularity to enter the political arena.

For one thing, Iacocca may not be up to the grind of presidential politics and White House life, some say. Although he puts in long, hard days at Chrysler, he tends to worry seriously about his health after having watched the long illness and death of his first wife. Iacocca is now sold on fiber diet supplements and works out daily in an executive gym that he recently installed at Chrysler headquarters.

He can be an imperious boss, and he is a man who has--with the exception of his firing by Henry Ford II--always had things his way. His friends say Iacocca knows that while he has mellowed a little in recent years, he is still best suited to the business world, not the political arena. “I think he’s smart enough to know he’s not a compromiser, and politics is a game of compromise,” adds Gar Laux, a retired auto executive and old Iacocca friend who knew him at both Ford and Chrysler.

Some friends and associates add that Iacocca treasures what is left of his privacy too much to subject himself, his family and his friends to the intense scrutiny that top government officials must endure.

In addition, some of Iacocca’s friends may be considered a little too flashy to be confidantes of a presidential candidate, other Iacocca associates say. Disdaining the company of most other top corporate leaders, Iacocca tends to choose friends from among those who have made it and don’t mind the limelight. He and his new wife, 36-year-old Peggy Johnson, honeymooned in April at the Palm Springs home of private investor Allen Paulson; the brief guest list at the wedding included New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, New York developer Donald Trump and Fugazy, who was best man. Another Iacocca friend is Claude Kirk, the former governor of Florida known for his lavish living while in office from 1967 to 1971.

Some who know him say Iacocca realizes that some of his friends would endure tough scrutiny during a presidential campaign. Steinbrenner, for instance, pleaded guilty in 1974 to making illegal contributions to the election campaigns of President Richard M. Nixon and other politicians. He paid a $15,000 fine.

And, according to a new book about the Ford family, “Ford: the Men and the Machine,” by Robert Lacey, in the 1970s Henry Ford II disliked the fact that Ford Motor was doing business with Fugazy, a one-time boxing promoter whose New York limousine service had a contract with Ford when Iacocca was its president. Ford officials declined to comment. Fugazy now serves as chairman of the New York state Statue of Liberty Centennial Commission.

Added to Resolve

“Iacocca’s attracted to exciting people, people who are sort of in the news,” one former associate says. “He’s not friends with chief executives of Fortune 500 companies but with guys who own racehorses and can live on yachts. Those aren’t the friends of a presidential candidate, and I think he knows that.” Iacocca’s friends, as well as his colleagues at Chrysler, also say that his firing from the Statue of Liberty advisory commission last February, and the furor surrounding it, added to his resolve never to get caught up in the political world of Washington.

“What he has told me is that he couldn’t put up with all that Washington doubletalk,” says Carroll Shelby, a developer of performance cars and an old Iacocca friend. “He talked to me in February about it, right after his firing from the commission, and all he could talk about were the two bad Dons (Hodel and White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan, who reportedly dislikes Iacocca).”

At the same time, it’s not even certain that Iacocca is a Democrat. Apart from his positions on trade and budget issues, Iacocca’s personal politics are not well known; what is known reveals a conservative businessman who might not fit well in the Democratic Party.

Despite his criticism of the Reagan Administration, he admits having voted for Reagan in 1980. And while Chrysler’s brush with disaster convinced him to break with big business and call for strict trade protectionism, his views on regulatory issues affecting the auto industry remain thoroughly Republican.

Officials in Chrysler’s Washington office also note that despite the commission firing, Iacocca remains on good terms with some key conservative leaders in the Reagan Administration. He is an admirer of Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III and has a good relationship with Vice President George Bush. He was also co-chairman with the President of a fund-raising luncheon for conservative Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.) last April.

Chrysler executives, who treasure Iacocca’s power as a spokesman for the firm’s products and its positions on public issues, add that Iacocca also realizes that he would never again have the same freedom to speak out on a range of issues of his choosing if he became a political candidate or went to work in someone else’s government.

“I think there is a great benefit to his not running, because he achieves his objective, which is to be a business statesman and to comment on the broader issues outside of the auto industry,” says Dick Muller, a spokesman in Chrysler’s Washington office.

Still, no matter how often he insists that he plans to stay at Chrysler, rumors among Iacocca watchers continue to swirl around Detroit about what he will do when he leaves.

One of the latest is that Iacocca, proud of his Italian heritage, would like to be U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. But, according to the somewhat facetious rumor, the catch is that the Pope has already told him that he curses too much for the job. A Chrysler spokesman says he has never heard Iacocca express any interest in the post.

And those who know him best doubt that Iacocca will ever leave Detroit for good. Says Gar Laux: “You’ll never get Lee out of the car business.”