Inside the FDIC

Chapter 4

Credit Crunch

Bill Seidman had a strained relationship with the Treasury Department. His meetings with Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady rarely went well. His meetings with Deputy Treasury Secretary John Robson were far worse. Brady and Robson generally wanted Seidman to follow Treasury's lead, but Bill Seidman never followed anyone's lead.

As chairman of the FDIC, Seidman liked to point out that the FDIC was an “independent” federal agency. It did not report to the Treasury Department. This annoyed Treasury's senior officials. Conversely, the FDIC's employees, myself included, loved that Seidman allowed our voice to be heard.

As the weakness in the economy and in the banking industry unfolded in the early 1990s, the need for interaction between Brady and Seidman heightened. One day the Washington, D.C., weather was comfortable enough that Bill and I walked the long block from the FDIC's headquarters on 17th Street, past the White House, to the Treasury Department's headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue for a meeting with Secretary Brady. When we arrived, the security guards were slow to let us into the building. This could have been because someone on our end had not provided them with the necessary security clearance information, or it could have been that they had misplaced that information. But the lengthy delay was all that Bill needed to storm out of the building and head back to his office. As we walked back past the White House to the FDIC, it was not lost on ...