To the Editor:
When I saw The Herald's editorial headline ("President Simmons and Goldman Sachs," Feb. 12) my heart sort of jumped: The editors were going to do something courageous, such as respectfully suggest that Ruth Simmons resign from Goldman's board. Alas, the piece is an accommodation. As a working journalist in Washington for nearly three decades I have come to realize that Goldman's does more than affect public policy here. With their massive campaign contributions and lobbying, they have come to exemplify the wholesale corruption of our government. Their influence in Congress and in the White House, since Bill Clinton named Goldman CEO Bob Rubin head of his economics team in 1993, has contributed to a series of terrible decisions. These acts have stripped our factories of their machines and our workers of their jobs, and stripped from our laws the New Deal codes that protected ordinary investors and hometown banks from the self-dealing corruption that has helped create a jobless rate of ten percent, and a jobless/discouraged worker rate of 16 percent plus.
The Brown presidents of my day, Henry Wriston and Barnaby Keeney, men who rebuilt our University, would never have served on such a board, especially with the controversy now whirling around Goldman's head. I hope in time the Editorial Board will take another whack at this question and come up with a better answer.
Douglas L. Turner '54
Feb. 12
