Word: intra
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...trouble began when Intra Bank, the country's largest, ran out of cash to meet a run of withdrawals and closed its doors-perhaps forever. Among Lebanese, shock spread as it might in the U.S. if a dozen giant banks and industries collapsed together. Intra held 38% of the deposits in Lebanese-owned banks. It owned nine other banks, four of them in Lebanon. It controlled 35 companies, including Beirut's largest hotel and thriving Middle East Airlines, the Beirut port, the cement industry, a gambling casino and a metalworks; in all, it employed 43,000 persons...
Belated Pledge. Ironically, Intra was far from insolvent, with more than $230 million in assets against $170 million in liabilities. But too much was tied up in risky long-term investments, depriving the bank of needed cash. Predictably, Intra's closing started a run that threatened to bankrupt other Beirut banks. At a twelve-hour emergency night session, the Lebanese Cabinet ordered a three-day bank holiday to stall for time. To avert another kind of panic, Beirut's stock exchange also closed. So did department stores and shops, bringing business in the city close to a standstill...
Authorities abroad closed Intra's branches in Paris, London and Frankfurt. New York's state banking superintendent seized control of the Manhattan branch to protect its depositors. When the three largest U.S. banks (Bank of America, Chase Manhattan and First National City) defied the superintendent's demand to turn over $2,529,000 of Intra deposits-on the ground that the defunct bank owed them more than that elsewhere-he sued for the money. Some bankers fear that this wrangle could lead to retaliation against U.S. banks abroad...
Stocks in a Suitcase. Barring near-miracles, Intra's failure seems sure to cost its brash, engaging founder and chairman, Yusif Bedas, 53, control of his $1 billion empire. Born the second son of an Arab schoolteacher in Jerusalem, Bedas fled Palestine when it became Israel in 1948. Rounding up $4,000, the refugee began his Beirut career as a moneychanger in a dingy fourth-floor office, amassed enough capital in three years of flamboyant dealings to start Intra in 1951. To woo his share of the flood of investment money pouring into Lebanon from oil-rich Saudi princes...
...clear that Wallace is hoping for another eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with the federal government. And it is equally clear that Senator Mansfield, in this election year, does not want to see more intra-party feuding over integration. Wary of a white backlash vote, Mansfield is not about to defend federal integration requirements in the face of warnings by Wallace that, "The people of this nation will not long tolerate this trifling with the safety and security of their children...