Flanigan's Return

When he left Wall Street in 1969 to become Richard Nixon's White House liaison with big business, one of the things that Peter M. Flanigan left behind was a vice presidency at Dillon, Read & Co. Last week Flanigan, 51, returned to his old firm, this time as one of nine managing directors and a member of the five-man executive committee that runs what is generally ranked among the most influential international investment-banking houses.

Nixon's smooth but hard-nosed millionaire special assistant had been job hunting since he resigned last June. For a time it seemed that Flanigan might be U.S. ambassador to Spain, but the Senate Foreign Relations Committee let his nomination die. The Senators were reluctant to hand a diplomatic plum to a Nixon aide who had had at least a passing involvement in the Administration's marketing of ambassadorships. During a House hearing in July, Nixon's lawyer, Herbert Kalmbach, recalled being told by Flanigan to get in touch with a department-store millionairess, Ruth Farkas, because "she is interested in giving $250,000 for Costa Rica."

Flanigan plans to spend much of his time on his old specialty, international banking, and its new focus, the Middle East oil countries. "They certainly have the money," he says, "and our job is to put together those who have it with those who can use it."

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