When he left Wall Street in 1969 to become Richard Nixon's White House liaison with big business, one of the things that Peter M. Flanigan left behind was a vice presidency at Dillon, Read & Co. Last week Flanigan, 51, returned to his old firm, this time as one of nine managing directors and a member of the five-man executive committee that runs what is generally ranked among the most influential international investment-banking houses.
Nixon's smooth but hard-nosed millionaire special assistant had been job hunting since he resigned last June. For a time it seemed that Flanigan might be U.S. ambassador to...