Word: exxon
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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After the tanker Exxon Valdez plowed into a reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound, causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history, Exxon Chairman Lawrence Rawl made himself scarce. He waited almost a week before he publicly commented on the disaster, and it was more than two weeks before he ventured to Valdez. Last week, at Exxon's shareholder meeting, Rawl was forced to confront -- personally and directly -- a very angry public...
Before he could enter the Aspen Hotel in Parsippany, N.J., where the meeting was held, Rawl had to run a gauntlet of hundreds of angry demonstrators, some chanting, "What do you do with a drunken sailor? Make him skipper of an Exxon tanker!" Environmental activist Barry Commoner summed up the spirit of the crowd when he declared, "We are here to pass judgment on a crime against nature and the American people...
...speech to some 1,800 stockholders, Rawl accepted Exxon's "responsibility to clean up the spill and meet our obligations to those who were adversely affected by it." A team of independent board members, Rawl announced, would investigate management's possible culpability. He promised that an environmentalist would be named to Exxon's board, but when pressed, he admitted, "I don't know who that would be, and I don't know what the criteria would...
...same token, the President's response to the Alaska oil spill tarnished his leadership credentials. Bush failed to grasp the symbolic importance of dealing personally with a major environmental disaster. When an Exxon tanker dumped 11 million gal. of oil into Prince William Sound, Bush remained in Washington instead of touring the scene of the accident. Even his old friend John Chafee, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, says, "That was unfortunate, a missed opportunity." Despite the lack of personal involvement, however, Bush has sent ships and personnel from the Navy, Army, Air Force...
Edwards is not alone in his concerns. Several talk hosts have opted out of the Exxon boycott ("We felt that cutting up credit cards hurts the local guys running the gas station," says Steve Cochran, of Minneapolis' KDWB-FM). Others oppose efforts to organize radio hosts nationwide. "All the bad it can do outweighs the good it can do," says talk-show veteran Larry King. A number of prominent talk hosts are staying away from the convention being organized by Jerry Williams, and the management of New York City's WABC-AM has forbidden its employees to attend. "We feel...