Treasury Aide Leaving to Join Investment Firm

Deputy Treasury Secretary Richard G. Darman, an Administration official who attacked big business as bloated and inefficient, is resigning to join one of the country’s largest investment firms, the White House announced Thursday.

Darman, 43, will leave government service in two weeks to become a managing director of Shearson Lehman Bros.

Darman normally worked behind the scenes, but he attracted headlines last November when he charged that leaders of American businesses had become a “corpocracy” in which they presided over “bloated, risk-averse, inefficient and unimaginative” companies where the executives’ golf scores counted for more than their companies’ research budgets.

Aide to Baker

A longtime aide to Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III, Darman took over the No. 2 Treasury job in January, 1985, when Baker switched jobs with Donald T. Regan, who became White House chief of staff.

Before that, Darman had served as deputy White House chief of staff when Baker was chief of staff during President Reagan’s first term.

Darman was considered one of the Administration’s top political strategists and played a major role in drafting the initial tax cut proposal in 1981 and helping to push through Congress the major overhaul of the tax code last fall.

Darman, in his resignation letter, said he was leaving government service because of family obligations. Officials would not disclose what Darman’s salary will be at Shearson Lehman Bros.