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Senior Vice President Robert P. Graham "enjoyed talking about my job," but Corporate Planner John W. Heil-shorn "had a very real feeling when I walked in that I was guilty before I took the witness stand." Heilshorn found that the interviewers generally assumed that his institution is "a big, fat New York bank hoarding capital" and held "a clear bias toward centralized Government control" of private business. Says Wriston: "Most of the Nader team saw the experience as an adversary proceeding. Whatever you told them, they acted like you were trying to mislead." The investigators turned down an offer from the bank for each of its division heads to give an hour-long lecture on his own job. They also declined an invitation to an informal lunch with top management, feeling that it might appear to compromise them.
Ask the Customer. The investigators proved adept at making end runs. At one point, they set up a table outside the bank's Park Avenue headquarters and asked customers there to fill out questionnaires rating the bank's services. (Sample questions: "Are there enough tellers?" "Have you ever been refused a loan?") From court records they obtained the names of loan customers who had been judged in default and interviewed dozens of them. They also conferred with ex-employees, banking scholars and Government regulators. Somehow, the investigators got hold of three secret studies, which the bank itself had commissioned, on the subjects of employee and customer attitudes about Citibank. Nader estimates that only 10% to 15% of the report was drawn from official interviews within the bank.
The Raiders' final report turned out to be, by Nader's stern standards, a fairly non-vengeful indictment. Leinsdorf declared that the bank was "innovative, aggressive, growing and profitable." Even Nader smilingly admitted that "we got the impression that there were real human beings in this corporation, unlike others." Nevertheless, the investigators made serious charges against Citibank, most of which were promptly disputed by Wriston. Samples: — The sharpest accusation was that the bank has aggravated New York City's housing crisis by not putting back into neighborhoods, in the form of mortgage loans, nearly as much as it takes out of them in the form of savings deposits. Although Citibank holds $2 billion in individual savings, the Nader group noted, only $500 million is invested in residential mortgages. In view of the social blight sweeping most great U.S. cities, especially in slum areas, the investigators' point is not unreasonable. The bank's retort—perhaps inadequate —is that Citibank handles more mortgages than other major New York banks. However, the principle that banks must invest close to home is not one that the highly mobile U.S. has followed in the past.