Comes A Cookie Man

HANGING OUT A "HELP WANTED" sign for a new chief executive officer at a company like International Business Machines should have brought a long line of eager job seekers. It did not. Instead many chief executives, including Apple Computer's John Sculley and Motorola's George Fisher, went out of their way to avoid being drafted. The Big Blue board eventually settled on Louis Gerstner, chairman of RJR Nabisco, although he has absolutely no computer- industry experience. Gerstner's main qualification is his ability to turn companies around by cutting costs, but he will have his work cut out for him at IBM, which has lost $7.8 billion in the past two years and cut 100,000 jobs since 1985. As the first non-IBMer ever to head the company, Gerstner will have to win over IBM's shell-shocked work force, which fears even more job cuts.