Iacocca Is Latest Big Name in Eastern-Lorenzo Drama
To the big-name derby that has surrounded the long public agony of Eastern Airlines, add Lee A. Iacocca. The savior of Chrysler and sometime hero of organized labor surfaced this week as a labor-relations guru to chum Frank Lorenzo.
Lorenzo, the chairman of Texas Air and of strikebound, bankrupt Eastern, dropped in at Iacocca’s offices in Detroit on Thursday for what was described as a consultation on what to do about the reeling airline and Lorenzo’s bitter relations with its workers.
Their meeting was not as secret as planned. Flying a Northwest jetliner from Washington to Detroit under an assumed name, Lorenzo was recognized, and the pilot announced his presence to the passengers, the Detroit Free Press reported.
Quoting a local machinists union official, the newspaper said Lorenzo was booed by passengers and that the Northwest flight attendants donned anti-Lorenzo buttons like those sported by many of Eastern’s striking flight attendants, pilots and machinists. Tipped ahead of time, Detroit machinists greeted Lorenzo at the airport with picket signs.
The license number of the car meeting Lorenzo at the airport was apparently traced to Chrysler, which led to the disclosure that the beleaguered Eastern boss was meeting with Iacocca. They met for about 90 minutes, Chrysler officials said.
Earlier in the week, Iacocca denied through a Chrysler spokesman a rumor that he was involved with, or interested in, a purchase of Eastern. Company officials reiterated that denial Friday.
But the Chrysler chairman’s apparent role as adviser to Lorenzo is in keeping with the flavor of the Eastern story. The airline’s woes have attracted big names like flies.
A sampler: former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who was offered a job as interim boss of the airline but begged off because he is a director of Eastern creditor Boeing Co.; ex-Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, who was offered the same job, which ultimately was never created; Peter V. Ueberroth, the former baseball commissioner, Los Angeles Olympics chairman and travel agent, who tried to buy the airline; financier Kirk Kerkorian, who at one point was reported to be helping Ueberroth finance his deal; takeover artists Carl C. Icahn and Jay A. Pritzker, who apparently remain serious bidders; Michael Milken, the indicted Beverly Hills “junk bond” king, who injected himself into the deal some time ago by calling Ueberroth with financing advice, and Frederic V. Malek, an investor and pal of President Bush, who was the latest rumored bidder.
