CORPORATIONS: Behind the Purge at CBS

At 11 one morning last week, the directors of CBS Inc. walked into the 35th-floor boardroom of the company's headquarters tower in mid-Manhattan for their monthly meeting. They could not fail to notice the one empty seat at the huge, 17-place mahogany table—the seat reserved for President Arthur R. Taylor—but no one said anything about it. They had all been warned of what was going to happen next. CBS Chairman William S. Paley, 75, wasted no time. He announced that Taylor, 41, a financial wizard whom Paley himself hand-picked in 1972 for the presidency,...