Another fallen, canoodling boss

by David Grand
March 17, 2005

Harry Truman said three things can ruin a man: "power, money and women." And that certainly applies to the fired CEO of Boeing Harry Stonecipher, after its board learned of his relationship with a female executive, which they said "reflected poorly" on his judgment and ability to lead the company; regardless of the fact that sales soared since he took the helm in 2003. (Obviously, it didn't share Dr. David Ruben's belief, that "the more potent a man is in the bedroom, the more potent he's in business."        

And as added punishment, his wife of 50 years gave him the boot a few days afterwards. Gosh, I hope his dog didn't desert him, too. I know mine wouldn't me no matter what stupid things I did.      

You can also bet the news of his illicit affair caused many executives, who likewise forgot to heed that old admonition about "not dipping one's pen in the company's ink" to panic and attempt to quickly sever their relationships with their paramours on the payroll, by offering to find them a good job elsewhere and/or money, in the hope they'd fade away and keep their mouths shut.           

However, that doesn't always work, as the ex-president of Staples Martin Hanaka learned, when he was forced to resign after his secretary revealed their extramarital affair; and when a Mary Cunningham, fresh out of Harvard Business School, who rose from executive assistant to vice president at Bendix in a matter of months, got axed due to rumors about her relationship with the company's Chief Executive William Agee.      

When I first heard of Stonecipher's downfall for sins of the flesh, my first thought was that either he (or his playmate) must've been injecting testosterone substances in his buttocks, as the home run king Mike McGuire reputedly did every three days. And that if he'd instead been the CEO of Airbus (Boeing's chief foreign rival), the French would probably have given him a bonus or medal for having such a lively libido at 68. But he isn't alone by any means in that respect, for I can recall  a number of former congressmen, who in their sixties were as horny as a tomcat, and who were forced to resign for their sexual peccadilloes; such as:       

Rep. Wilbur Mills (D-Ark.), the 65-year-old chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee for 16 years, who it was said spent half of his 30 plus years in Congress in an alcoholic stupor, was caught in 1974 by the Park Police frolicking in the Tidal Basin with a thirty-eight-year-old stripper named Fanne Foxe (aka the "Argentina Firecracker). The police chose not to pursue the matter, but their report indicated that both were intoxicated and that Mills had a bloody nose, scratches on his face, and that Fanne had two black eyes. (They sure must've engaged in some rough-and-tumble lovemaking.)      

Two years later, Elizabeth Ray, who'd been Miss Virginia in the 1973 USA pageant, and who claimed she'd been involved romantically with many congressmen-and even with former vice president Hubert Humphrey-blew the whistle on her affair with 66-year-old Rep. Wayne Hays (D-OH.). As a reward for her services, he'd put her on the payroll as a clerk-typist for $14,000 a year, even though she couldn't type a lick or tell a typewriter ribbon from a hair ribbon.       

But no one has even come close to the notoriety Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) got at the age of 64 in 1992, when no less than 29 former employees and campaign workers came forward to accuse him of sexual harassment and in some cases actual assault. And in apologizing for his offensive behavior toward women said, "I just didn't get it, but I do now."      

Well, at least I no longer have to wonder why men who are sexagenarians, and who chase the fairer sex-for sex-are labeled as "dirty or silly old men," which age bracket is to me only a dim memory, thankfully so.