Interview with LAWRENCE RAWL: Exxon Strikes Back

One year after the Alaska spill, the company's chairman, LAWRENCE RAWL, speaks bluntly about mounting troubles, battered images and Captain Joe Hazelwood

Q. Exxon bashing is now in vogue. While Johnson & Johnson got good press for its handling of the Tylenol scare in 1982 and Perrier won praise recently for quickly recalling its tainted spring water, Exxon is charged with "arrogance." Are you arrogant?

A. We would have liked to recall the oil off the Prince William Sound. We called, but it didn't hear us. Now let's talk about that word arrogance. Last year customers boycotted us and cut up 40,000 credit cards. But, on average, those cards weren't being used much, while many other customers had ordered more than 160,000 cards...

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