LET THEM EAT CAKE

The renaissance of the Bank of America (“Banking on a Grand Scale,” by James Bates, Oct. 18) is a fascinating story of what a focused management can accomplish. I am not privy to what happened at Security Pacific to force it to seek a merger with Bank of America, but I did observe a symbol of what got Security Pacific’s old management in trouble.

Not too long before Security Pacific approached Bank of America, my wife and I attended a dinner party on the next-to-top floor of Security Pacific’s headquarters building. We were let into the two top floors by uniformed guards. The walls were decorated with a magnificent array of valuable paintings, while the top floor was devoted almost entirely to the offices of about four top officers.

With what occurred shortly thereafter, it might have been called “Versailles in the Sky.”

FLOYD A. OLIVER

Los Angeles