White Knights and Black Eyes

* It was Lipton, apparently, who first popularized the term white knight. In his book Takeovers and Freeze-outs, co-authored with Erica H. Steinberger, he describes the process metaphorically. A count (read corporation) under attack from a marauding black knight tries to defend his castle. But when all else fails, he turns to a white knight, "a neighboring count or foreign potentate [who] vanquishes the black knight, repacifies the serfs and moves into the castle. But alas it is the white knight's men who now sit at the council table. The count either swears fealty or joins his fellow exiles in Palm Beach or La Jolla."