Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (4 page)

I/We hereby declare that the
information given above or annexed to this application is correct.

Signature of Applicant(s)

or
in the case of a body
corporate,

of
a
duly authorised officer whose capacity is to be stated.

To the Secretary, Ministry of
Power, London, S. W. 1.

Harvey was not British, none of his
companies was British and he knew he would have presentation problems. He
decided that his application must be backed by a British bank and that he must
set up a company whose directors would give confidence to the British
Government.

With this in mind, early in 1964 he
registered a company in England called Discovery Oil, using Malcolm, Bottnick
and Davis as his solicitors and Barclays Bank as bankers, as they were already
The Lincoln Trust’s representatives in Europe. Lord Hunn isett became chairman
and several distinguished men joined the Board, including two ex-Members of
Parliament (who had lost their seats when the Labour Party won the 1964
election). When Harvey discovered how stringent the rules were for setting up a
public company in England, he decided to launch the main company on the
Canadian Stock Exchange and to use the English company only as a subsidiary.
Discovery Oil issued 2,000,000 ten-cent shares at fifty cents, which were all
acquired for Harvey by nominees. He also deposited $500,000 in the Lombard
Street branch of Barclays Bank.

Having thus created the front, Harvey then
used Lord Hunnisett to apply for the licence from the British Government. The
new Labour
government elected in October 1964 were
no
more aware of the significance of North Sea oil than the earlier Conservative
administration. The government’s requirements for a licence were a rent of £12,000
a year for the first six years, and 12 ½ percent revenue tax with a further
capital gains tax on profits, but as Harvey’s plan did not allow for any
company profit, that was not going to be a problem.

On the May 22, 1965, the Minister of Power
published in the London
Gazette
the
name of Discovery Oil among the fifty-two companies granted production
licences. On August 3, 1965, Statutory Instrument No. 1531 allocated the actual
areas. Discovery Oil was

51° 50’ 00”
N :
2°
30’ 20” E, a site adjacent to one of British Petroleum’s holdings.

Hopefully, Harvey waited for one of the
companies who had acquired North Sea sites to strike oil. It was a longish
wait: not until June 1970 did British Petroleum make a big commercial strike in
their Forties Field. Harvey was on to another winner, and set the second part
of his plan in motion.

Early in 1972 he hired an oil rig, which,
with much flourish and publicity, he had towed out to the Discovery Oil site.
He hired the rig on the basis of being able to renew the contract if he made a
successful strike, and with the minimum number of people allowed by the
government regulations, they proceeded to drill to 6,000 feet. After this
drilling had been completed, he released from employment all those involved,
but told Reading & Bates, from whom he had rented the rig, that he would be
requiring it again in the near future and therefore would continue to pay the
rental.

Harvey then bought Discovery Oil shares on
the market at the rate of a few thousand a day for the next two months from his
own nominees, and whenever the financial journalists of the British Press rang
to ask why these shares were steadily rising, the young public relations
officer at Discovery Oil’s office said, as briefed, he had no comment to make
at present but they would be making a press statement in the near future; some
newspapers put two and two together and made about fifteen. The shares climbed
steadily from fifty cents to nearly three dollars. At the same rime Harvey’s
chief executive in Britain, Bernie Silverstein, was only too aware of what the
boss was up to–he had been involved in past operations of this kind. His main
task was to ensure that nobody could prove a direct connection between Metcalfe
and Discovery Oil.

In January 1974 the shares stood at six
dollars. It was then that Harvey was ready to move on to the third part of his
plan, which was to use Discovery Oil’s new recruit, a young Harvard graduate
called David Kesler, as the fall guy.

D
avid pushed his glasses back onto the bridge
of his nose and read the advertisement in the Business Section of the Boston
Globe
again to be sure he was not
dreaming. It could have been tailor-made for him.

Oil Company based in Canada, carrying out
extensive work in the North Sea off Scotland, requires a young executive with
experience in the stock market and financial marketing.
Salary
$20,000 a year.
Accommodation supplied.
Based in
London.
Apply Box No. 217 A.

“Fantastic,” said David to himself, “that
sounds a challenge, and it must lead to other openings in an industry that
large.” He recalled what his tutor in European affairs used to say:

“If you must work in Great Britain, better
make it the North Sea.
Nothing else great about the country.
Lots of oil in lots of places equals lots of business opportunities for those
who have the guts to invest with their balls.”

David Kesler was a lean, clean-cut young
American with a crew cut which would have been better suited to a lieutenant in
the Marines, a fresh complexion and an unquenchable earnestness, who wanted to
succeed in business with all the fervour of the new graduate from Harvard
Business School. He had spent five years in all at Harvard, the first four
studying mathematics, and the last two over the river Charles, at the Business
School. He had just graduated and, armed with an M.A. and an M.B.A., he was
looking round for a job that would reward him for the exceptional capacity for
hard work he knew he possessed. He had never been brilliant and envied the
natural academics among his classmates who found post-Keynesian economic
theories more fun than hard work. David had worked ferociously, only lifting
his nose far enough from the grindstone for a daily workout at the gymnasium,
and the occasional weekend watching Harvard jocks defending the honour of the
university on the football field or in the basketball court. He would have
enjoyed playing himself, but that would have meant another distraction.

He read the advertisement again.

David’s parents had not found him an easy
child to bring up. His father, a Calvinist priest from Oregon, was almost as
naive about the real world as his homely, apron string mother. Quite early on,
they had stopped loving and protecting him and contented themselves with
admiring his string of school and college successes. “David must not cry if he
does not come in at the head of the class,” said one report of the ten year old
arithmetician. Later, he learnt not to cry at failure, but it still cut him
deep. That was why at Harvard he had shut himself up with textbooks and nothing
more yielding than a bar and some weights for relaxation. He had seen quite a
few Harvard men who might have made it but for some dumb blonde. That wasn’t
going to happen to him.

He read the advertisement again.

For five years he had been as cloistered as
a monk and as dull as a celibate and now it was time to gather the honey. He
would apply for the job. He was young, of course, but that might count in his
favour. The integrity of his self-confidence was unbreached by failure: people
liked that.

He read the advertisement again, and typed a
neat letter to the box number. A few days later, back came a questionnaire of a
sort familiar to him from Harvard days, which asked:

Name, age, address, marital status.

Brothers/sisters, age, address, list of
schools, colleges, universities attended with all dates.

List of high school, college, university,
when attended, dates.

What program did you specialize in at
Business School?

Major
field
of
study.Major extracurricular activities in order of importance.

Distinctions, honours and awards.

What did you get out of your academic and
extracurricular life at college?

Describe your avocations and hobbies.

On a full page, describe your three most
substantial accomplishments and explain why you view them as such.

What factors led you to decide an oil
company would be helpful to your career development
?.

Discuss other vocations or professions that
you have seriously considered.

Give a candid evaluation of yourself.
Discuss those characteristics you feel have become your strengths and those you
feel are your weaknesses.

Describe any situation or job in which you
felt you had responsibility and tell us what you learnt from that experience.

Do you have any disabilities or illness
which would necessitate special treatment?
Yes/No.
If
yes, explain.

List three references.

You can’t succeed in business without
proving you are a normal, full-blooded member of the human race. David filled
in the form, admitting to no weakness more ineradicable than inexperience.

A few more days passed before another letter
summoned him to an interview at a local hotel on the following Wednesday at
three o’clock. Talent scouts for big companies often used such a venue for
interviews in a university city.

David arrived at two forty-five at the
Copley Square Hotel in Huntington Avenue, the adrenaline pumping round his
body. He repeated the Harvard Business School motto to himself as he was
ushered into a small private room: look British, think Yiddish.

Three men, who introduced themselves as
Silverstein, Cooper and Elliott, interviewed him. Bernie Silverstein, a
silver-haired, check-tied New Yorker with a solid aura of success, was in
charge. Cooper and Elliott sat and watched David silently. It didn’t throw him:
he knew he looked keen and was coming over well.

Silverstein spent considerable time giving
David an enticing description of the company’s background and its future aims.
Harvey had trained Silverstein well and he had all the glib expertise at his
well-manicured fingertips needed by the right-hand man in a Metcalfe coup.

“So there you have it, Mr. Kesler. We’re
involved in one of the biggest commercial opportunities in the world, looking
for oil in the North Sea off Scotland. Our company, Discovery Oil, has the
backing of one of the largest banks in America. We have been granted licences
from the British Government and we have the finance. But companies are made,
Mr. Kesler, by people, it’s as simple as that. We’re looking for a man who will
work night and day to put Discovery Oil on the map, and we’ll pay the right man
a top salary to do just that. If you were offered the position you would be
working in our London office under the immediate direction of our Number Two,
Mr. Elliott.”

“Where are the company headquarters?”

“Montreal, Canada, but we have offices in
New York, San Francisco, London, Aberdeen, Paris and Brussels.”

“Is the company looking for oil anywhere
else?”

“Not at the moment,” answered Silverstein. “We’re
sinking millions into the North Sea after BP’s successful strike, and at the
moment the fields around us have all had a one in five success rate, which is
very high in our business.”

“When would you want the successful
applicant to start?”

“Some time in January, when he has completed
a government training course on management in oil,” said Richard Elliott. The
slim, sallow Number Two sounded as if he was from Georgia. The government
course was a typical Harvey Metcalfe touch.

“And the company apartment,” said David, “where’s
that?”

Cooper spoke: “You will have the small
company flat in the Barbican, a few hundred yards away from our London City
office.”

David had no more questions–Silverstein had
covered everything and seemed to know exactly what he wanted.

David Kesler left the hotel feeling quite
pleased with the way the interview had gone. He had already been offered a job
with a shipping company call Sea Containers Inc., but they were only offering
$15,000 and he would have to be based in Chicago. Chicago wasn’t his kind of
town. David liked the thought of living in London and acquiring a matt British
finish on his glossy American efficiency. He promised himself that if Discovery
Oil offered him the position of their executive in London he would take it.

Ten days later he received a telegram from
Silverstein, inviting him to lunch at the 21 Club in New York. The plush air of
the restaurant gave David confidence that these people knew what they were
about. Their table was in one of the small alcoves so liked by businessmen who
prefer their conversations to remain confidential. He met Silverstein in the
bar at twelve fifty-five.