THE RISK UNDERWRITERS
Destined To Be An International Bestseller
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The long-drawn Vietnam War created a dramatic backlash in the USA social psyche. Side by side with the civil rights, peace and love movements in the urban city areas and university college campuses, drug use and chemical dependency spread nationwide. Over time, vivid pictures of violence in Vietnam sustained by TV and published reports, and corroborated by returning veterans and Newsweek and Time magazines, plus incessant riots in major USA cities, with drugs playing significant roles in audacious clashes with the police and the military, began to blur the differences between crime, punishment and socialized violence. First, it was the USA that was underwriting the political and defense risks for South Vietnam. The French had tried earlier and failed. Inside the American society, insurance companies, the lead underwriters of economic and some political risks, were accelerating their organizational evolution, technology and capacity building to cope with a much more complex society. It is in this milieu that James Payne, a blue-blood and a rising corporate attorney, was charged with doing the unthinkable; pouring a large portion of concentrated sulphuric acid on his would-be lover, Virginia Vitelli, also a rising advertising executive in Manhattan, New York City. His victim lost both eyes and became permanently blind. The dramatic trial that followed this gruesome incident played out for a couple of years, mirroring the loss of sensibilities on crime, violence and punishment in the larger society. Earlier in 1959, a celebrated case of crime of passion, The Pugach – Linda Riss Case, swept New York City, the nation and the entire free world. A Bronx lawyer, Pugach, then 32, was tried, convicted, disbarred and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for hiring three thugs to pour acid onto the eyes of his sweetheart, Linda Riss, who ended her romance with Burton Pugach after finding out that he was married. It cost her total blindness in one eye and partial blindness in the other. His wife divorced him during his 14th year of imprisonment. In 1974, 8 months after parole, he married his sweetheart, Linda Riss. The couple lived in Forest Hills, New York. On April 2, 1978, again in New York City, Shekkwan Tsang, a graduate student of science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, poured a liberal portion of sulphuric acid (a six-ounce glass beaker) on the face and eyes of his ex-sweetheart, pretty brunette Norina Moskowitz. She is a Wellesly College graduate and was studying for a Master’s degree at the Columbia University’s Graduate School of International Affairs. The major problem this time was religion. She is Jewish and he practiced an Oriental religion. Since this incident, the New York Post and other major newspapers, radios and televisions have been giving it a wide and interesting coverage. Ample comparisons have also been made with the Pugach – Linda Riss case. Was the stage for these events set by the socio-psychological impact of the Vietnam War and its frustrations on Jim Payne’s generation? Did Jim Payne’s generation become immune to love, affection, pain and violence? What roles did the Risk Underwriters play? All references to names of people or groups, either living, dead, or expired, are purely coincidental.
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About the Book
The finest rendition of the ‘60s social milieu; from New York, to Vietnam, Paris and back. Constantine Chris Pavlides, Professor of Business Admin, Temple University Philadelphia The long-drawn Vietnam War created a dramatic backlash in the USA social psyche. Side by side with the civil rights, peace and love movements in the urban city areas and university college campuses, drug use and chemical dependency spread nationwide. Over time, vivid pictures of violence in Vietnam sustained by TV and published reports, and corroborated by returning veterans and Newsweek and Time magazines, plus incessant riots in major USA cities, with drugs playing significant roles in audacious clashes with the police and the military, began to blur the differences between crime, punishment and socialized violence. First, it was the USA that was underwriting the political and defense risks for South Vietnam. The French had tried earlier and failed. Inside the American society, insurance companies, the lead underwriters of economic and some political risks, were accelerating their organizational evolution, technology and capacity building to cope with a much more complex society. It is in this milieu that James Payne, a blue-blood and a rising corporate attorney, was charged with doing the unthinkable; pouring a large portion of concentrated sulphuric acid on his would-be lover, Virginia Vitelli, also a rising advertising executive in Manhattan, New York City. His victim lost both eyes and became permanently blind. The dramatic trial that followed this gruesome incident played out for a couple of years, mirroring the loss of sensibilities on crime, violence and punishment in the larger society. Was the stage for these events set by the socio-psychological impact of the Vietnam War and its frustrations on Jim Payne’s generation? Did Jim Payne’s generation become immune to love, affection, pain and violence? What roles did the Risk Underwriters play?
About the Author
Herbert Onyekwere Orji, FCIB (London), CFA, OON Professor Orji, Global Investment Banker and Chartered Stock Broker, is the Chairman and CEO of Summa Guaranty & Trust Company Plc,(Member of the Nigeria Stock Exchange). He previously served with the IFC-Emerging Markets Inc. as a Consulting Senior Advisor on Discount Houses; Managing Director & CEO of Progress Bank of Nigeria Plc. (1985-1991); Pioneer Representative and General Manager of United Bank for Africa in the U.K; Vice President of American Express Bank Group on Wall Street, USA and a Computer Systems Programmer with Riggs National Bank, Washington DC (now PN Bank N.A.). Professor Orji graduated with a first class honors in Mathematics and Economics from Howard University. He received an MBA (Finance& Operations Research) with distinction from the University of Michigan. Thereafter he received a PhD from Union Inst. & Univ. and a PMD from Harvard Business School. He has published five books, two of which are publishers’ award winners, and over 120 articles in Nigeria and abroad on Banking & Finance, Operations Research, Investment Management and the Applied Economics of Development. He has also lectured at Howard, Union, Lagos Business School, the Nigeria Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Harvard and Clark-Atlanta Universities. Orji is the President‘s Council Professor of Banking, Finance and Applied Economics at City University Los Angeles. Professor Orji serves on a good number of Boards, including the parent Board of Harvard Business School Alumni, Boston, and Chairmanship of United Way-Nigeria. He is married to Dr. Nnenna A. Orji, Chairman and Chief Judge of the Investments and Securities Tribunal, and they have seven children. Prof. Orji was honored with the National Award of Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2011, for exceptional contributions to banking, finance, applied economics and post-graduate education. N.B: This book, The Risk Underwriters, was written in 1976-77, when the author was coming up as a young Investment Banker on Wall Street, New York City. OT HER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR: 1. Forward Ever. Eastern Nigeria Printing Press, 1967. 2. Interstate Regional Banking Systems. University of Michigan Microfilms, 1980. 3. Regional Banking & Economic Development in Nigeria. Fourth Dimension Publishers, Enugu, and Millimot of London, 1986. 4. Platinum Essays In The Philosophy Of Applied Economics of Development. Author House, Bloomington, Indiana, 2011.