ALAN B. LEVENSON WAS INTERVIEWED BY RICHARD ROWE OF THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION HISTORICAL SOCIETY ON JANUARY 14, 2003
Alan B. Levenson served as
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p. 10, 11
RR: Did you ever encounter or feel pressure from sources outside of the Commission that tried to affect the course of investigations or proceedings?

AL: Yes, but isolated. One time there was a call from, there were a couple of calls from a chief of staff of a House committee. I felt that the effect was to try and put pressure on me to expedite a registration statement. That's when I was head of CorpFin, the director. Also, when I served in that position, I had gotten a call from a high official at Treasury Department on a totally different manner. He wanted to be an "honest broker" with us with one of the largest companies in the United States, and I told him on the phone, "Thank you very much, but we don't need honest brokers," and hung up on him. I might say that I had gotten a call after hanging up on him, within two minutes, from Ray Garrett, then chairman of the Commission, who said, "Alan, I just got a call from the assistant secretary of the treasury who said you hung up on him. Is it true?" I said, "Because he wanted to be an honest broker, and this Commission doesn't need honest brokers. We can handle our matters." And I said, "Ray, stay out of it." And he did.

RR: Ray was a very wise man.

AL: Ray was an outstanding chairman. The Commission's been blessed by having outstanding chairpersons and commissioners and staff in different divisions. As to myself, I'll make no comment.

...

At the same time, we had another circumstance in that case whereby Citicorp took the position they did not want to supply CorpFin with supplemental information as to the dollar amount of REITs [Real Estate Investment Trusts] in their portfolio, which was a problem throughout the country at the time. That they would make the decision on what's material. They would only supply us what they thought was material, as distinguished from what the staff in the processing branch requested as supplemental information.

I took the position that this was highly unusual, and they had the right not to supply any information, just like we had the right not to accelerate. As a result, I was before the full Commission within two days, at Walter Wriston's request that he be heard. Ray Garrett was then chairman, and Ray said, "Mr. Wriston, you requested this meeting." And Mr. Wriston, then said that Citicorp has the right to determine what's material, and not CorpFin staff, and he went on for fifteen minutes. I was then asked by chairman Garrett for a reply. And my reply was as follows. "Exxon and General Motors are the largest companies in the United States, not Citicorp. Neither Exxon nor General Motors try to arrogate to themselves what's material in terms of furnishing the staff with supplemental information. I said I saw no reason why Citicorp should be treated differently." And to the Commission's credit, they did not treat that company differently, and the matter passed.

p. 18, 19
RR: That reminds me of another accomplisment, which you didn''t mention, and that is the relationship of the Commission's mission, which is disclosure, or one of its missions, disclosure to investors and the banking regulators who are saying, "Our mission is prortection of depositors, and we don't want our banks giving a lot of this information that the Commission would like to get from them." You remember those discussoins and controversies?

AL: I remember them well. Arthur Burns was then chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, and we had Christmas Eve discussions at the SEC, particularly about the New York City municipal bond crisis. Sandy Burton was then chief accountant, and Ray Garrett, myself, and others. You must give the SEC Commissioners great credit for standing tall and not being pressured for taking the position that the law should apply to all public companies equally, regardless of who you are. I think that was the great strength of the Commission in the New York City crisis, and the role of CorpFin was highly important. I would add that to one of the significant achievements as a team that we made.

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