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What about the Pentagon, Lee? "I don't get into defense because I'm in over my head. I've never studied that." Come on. "I'm just talking about waste. So how about me giving you the strong defense you want? And leave it up to me what's 'strong,' at 20 cents less on the dollar by getting efficient. People would shout, 'Oh, shit, be my guest!' I would take the slop out of the military-industrial complex. And I happen to know it exists. I mean, it's cost-plus, and there's no competition. What the hell, there has to be slop."
It is just that sort of high-frequency rap that excites Iacocca's admirers. At a weekend-long gathering of House Democrats in West Virginia earlier this month, it was a similar talk on trade that caused a small ruckus. Iacocca's speech included a challenge to the Japanese Prime Minister concerning the U.S.-Japan trade imbalance, which rose to $37 billion last year. "Look, Mr. Nakasone," Iacocca said, "that's just too big a rip-off, even for a friend. I'm giving you (a goal) for your team: $10 billion out next year. Tell me how you get there . . . Your call. You've got 30 days. Sayonara." California Democrat Robert Matsui, a Japanese American unaccustomed to Iacocca's happy- - go-lucky tendency toward the shrill, called the remarks "racist."
It took days for Iacocca to get over his hurt and bewilderment over the "sayonara" brouhaha. Clearly, he still has an uncertain feel for the hair-trigger proprieties of national politics. In the past his Japan bashing had never provoked such alarm. "Jesus, it was a closed meeting! These single- issue guys--I mean, what the hell's going on? How'd you like to do that for a living every day? I don't understand it." Joseph Califano, who has worked for the past three Democratic Presidents, does understand it. Says Califano: "The only guys who get shots as far out as that one are guys who are perceived as candidates."
George Romney, the last and only auto executive to make a serious run for the presidency, had no groundswell pushing him along in 1968. How would Iacocca run in 1988? Most pros believe that Iacocca could be politically popular. Like Eisenhower, his worldly achievement is impressive; his Trumanesque candor is bracing; and like Hubert Humphrey or Ronald Reagan, he brims with joie de vivre. Indeed, says Califano, "Reagan and Lee are similar. Both say flat out what they think. There aren't any hidden agendas." Wendell Larsen, a former executive under Iacocca at Chrysler, elaborates on the Reagan analogy. "Some of the things Lee has tapped into are the same as Reagan," he suggests. "The nation has been looking for a leader who is sure of himself, who calls a spade a spade--even if it isn't. He oversimplifies issues, and people like that. But Reagan is shallow. Lee is not. He's a hell of a lot smarter than Ronald Reagan and a hell of a lot deeper." Iacocca has already proved himself on television. Even he alludes to it, jokingly, as a political asset. "Cronkite and I were sitting around the house trying to figure out how much of a phony Reagan is. He said, 'Why don't the two of us be running mates? We both know television.' I said, 'Sure--what spot do you want?' "