THE "STEALTH CHAIRMAN" SPEAKS

In his first face-to-face meeting with the press since adding chairman to his title on New Year's Day, General Motors CEO Jack Smith told TIME's William McWhirter and a small group of automotive journalists that he expected the company to see a second consecutive year of profits in the North America. "This was a chance for him to emphasize that GM's financial recovery was not a fluke, and that he's fairly confident that he's returend the company to a much sounder operating structure than it's had in some time," says McWhirter. Smith, whose low-key management style has earned him the nickname "stealth chairman" in Detroit circles, told McWhirter that a major challenge for GM and other U.S. automakers is finding a way to make affordable cars with safety features like side-door airbags. "We still have too many cars stacked on top of one another, all trying to sell to the same customer." Smith also admitted that, despite the Clinton Administration's trade brinkmanship with Japan last summer, Japan-bashing from Detroit is a thing of the past: "Now it's really up to us to take advantage of the openings in that market by producing models that ther Japanese want to buy."