Newspaper Page Text
— Griffin Daily News Thursday, September 22, 1977
Page 8
Lance
ATLANTA (AP) - Bert
Lance’s biography read like the
American dream — until this
summer.
The young man starts with a
small job, makes a success of
himself and becomes a million
aire and adviser to the presi
dent.
But months of accusations
and political pressure have
Lance packing to leave Wash
ington, where he resigned
Wednesday as director of the
Office of Management and
Budget, and the President's
right-hand man, to see if he can
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biography reads like American
return to being “a country
banker.”
That’s where it started, in
Calhoun, Ga., where Lance got
a S9O-a-month job as a teller at
the Calhoun First National
Bank in 1952 after quitting col
lege.
The bank had been founded by
the grandfather of his wife,
Laßelle David, whom he mar
ried in 1950.
Lance worked his way up in
the bank and in 1958 he and
several friends bought it from a
Tennessee firm. In 1963, at age
32, he was elected its president.
He helped build the bank’s
assets from $6 million to $56
million in 1974.
Lance’s political career be
gan modestly in 1966, when he
met a south Georgia state sena
tor named Jimmy Carter who
was running for governor.
Carter lost, but tried again in
1970, backed in part by $1,500 of
Lance's money and his strong
support — much needed to win a
south Georgia farm boy votes in
the north Georgia mountains.
This time Carter won and
asked Lance to head the state’s
highway department. Obser
vers credit Lance with changing
the department from one of
“paving and politics” to a
modern transportation
department.
In 1971, Lance privately urged
Carter to consider running for
president. That same year, a
memo from Carter aide
Hamilton Jordan to the gover
nor, suggested that Lance ought
to run for governor while Carter
sought the White House.
That way, the memo rea
soned, former Gov. Lester
Maddox, who beat Carter in
1966 and was biding time as
lieutenant governor because a
Georgia governor could not suc
ceed himself, would not have a
clear shot at another term in the
governor's mansion.
Maddox was one of Carter’s
bitterest enemies, and, Jordan
reasoned, could have wrecked
Carter’s accomplishments as
governor — particularly his
government reorganization —
even as Carter was using them
as his credentials to be presi
dent.
It was a stormy meeting in
Washington between Lance and
then U.S. Transportation Secre
tary John Volpe, that led to
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Bert Lance, who resigned as budget director Wednesday,
is shown left: In 1974 during unsuccessful campaign for
Georgia governor; center, in 1975 at his National Bank of
some of Carter’s campaign
pledges.
Lance told his governor about
the trappings surrounding
Volpe, including lunch served
on a gold-rimmed platter by a
Coast Guard officer in fulldress
uniform.
That, and Volpe’s refusal to
immediately spend money for
Interstate 75 in Georgia, helped
launch Carter’s campaign
against the Washington estab
lishment.
Carter often used Lance,
whose congenial, back-slapping
manner won friends easily, to
handle the give-and-take of pol
itics.
A 1972 memo from Carter
asked Lance to speed up a road
project in Carter’s home county
to help his cousin, Hugh Carter,
win re-election.
In a handwritten answer,
Lance said he’d call Hugh to
“discuss timing etc.”
In 1973, Lance resigned from
state office to run for governor.
“I’m sure I’ll be called a
wealthy, silk-stocking banker,”
Lance said then. “I carefully
admit to the allegation that I am
a banker, and I am proud of
what country bankers like
myself have done for this
state.”
He borrowed money from
north Georgia banks to finance
the campaign — and interest
rates up to 4 per cent below the
then prime rate of 12 per cent.
George Busbee attacked
Lance’s financing, declaring
that his opponent was “destined
to be known as Loophole Lan-
Georgia office; and, right, in September 1977 leaving his
Georgetown home enroute to his Washington office.
(AP)
ce.” He later expressed regret
over using the term.
To keep the campaign going,
Lance and Laßelle frequently
overdrafted their bank ac
counts, by up to $150,000 and the
bank quietly paid the checks.
The campaign cost $1 million,
but Lance finished third to
Maddox and Busbee in a 15-
candidate race. His workers
had raised only $600,000 and
losers don’t have many friends
to help pay off debts. Lance still
is carrying a large chunk of that
$400,000 debt.
After the primary, Lance and
two other men bought the Na
tional Bank of Georgia. He be
came bank president in 1975.
About this time nearly $1 mil
lion in embezzlements were
found at the Calhoun bank and a
dream
bank officer was convicted.
Lance and others at the bank
agreed to end what the comp
troller of the currency said were
“unsafe and unsound” banking
practices at Calhoun — in
cluding interest-free loans in
the form of overdrafted check
ing accounts.
During 1975, Lance launched
an expansion program at NBG,
including $4.7 million in farm
loans and $1 million in capital
investment loans to the Carter
warehouse company of Plains,
Ga.
In 1976, he visited business
men to urge support for Carter
and landed a major Teamsters
union pension fund account for
the trust department of his
bank.
On Dec. 3,1976, Carter named
Lance director of the Office of
Management and Budget. On
Dec. 8, the National Bank of
Georgia decided to open a
correspondent account at the
First National Bank of Chicago
and on Jan. 6, 1977, Lance
borrowed $3.4 million from the
bank.
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A financial statement made
by Lance Jan. 7 showed his net
worth at $2.6 million, with as
sets of $7.9 million and “direct
liabilities” of $5.3 million.
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