LETTERS

...Mr: Ryan is director of the Ofice of Thrift Supervision...

...There are even some who are doctors and 1awy.ers (although most don’t seem to bother-why work so hard when you’ve already made it...

...They may be traveling between any one of their half-dozen houses in as many different countries or they may be teaching elementary school in New York City or skiing full time in Colorado or playing in rock bands in Los Angeles or living in cabins in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom-but they’re there...

...Indeed, it would have been irresponsible if Washington unilaterally worked out the details of the plan...

...The work of the OTS Dallas region and its director, Billy C. Wood, is exemplary...

...The number of enforcement orders in 1991 was more than triple the 1989 total-and double the 1990 figures...

...The reason they are certainly not an upper class is, as Lemann says, “they have very little spare time or money...

...Moreover, in numerous contacts with staff here in Washington and in Dallas over a period of several months, Georges did not reveal a considerable slice of the more inflammatory material that appeared in his article...

...But again, he provides no response to the larger point: While Dallas may be aggressively pursuing more small thrifts, it is letting the large ones (which should be watched most closely) slide by with lax oversight...

...This is not to say that more openness on their part would have explained away the allegations of abuse, which I stand by, but a more open response mechanism would at least have allowed the OTS to present its side of the story before the piece ran, as well as explain what it’s doing to rectify problems that exist...

...I personally have the highest regard for the Dallas staff and the job it is doing...

...I only disagree on what is perhaps a matter of semantics...

...It’s true, as Lemann indicates, that they’re not spending so much time at prestigious social clubs or debutante balls, but these people have not disappeared...

...the recognition that, just as Jews were wary of the inherent cultural biases intrinsic in any “character and moral standards test,” many blacks, latinos, and others see the academic performance and aptitude tests as rigged in favor of those who currently hold power...

...they said they could not comment on these (or any other) cases due to banking secrecy laws...

...TIMOTHY RYAN Washington, D.C...

...I twice requested interviews with Task Force officials and was told both times that they were not permitted to discuss the cases in question due to banking secrecy laws...

...From the beginning as director of OTS, I established tough enforcement as a top priority...

...His circumspect approach gave us little or no opportunity to correct obvious errors and mischaracterizations...

...It is curious that in his detailed letter, Ryan fails to respond to one of the piece’s serious allegations: that several current and former OTS employees who have attempted to reveal problems within the agency have been vigorously pursued and punished by the OTS...

...but one thing the majority of these upper-class young people are not doing is feeling a lot of stress because they don’t have enough time or money...

...All five regional offices have aggressively responded to this call to action with outstanding enthusiasm and results...

...The only assignment of the Dallas office was to expedite the resolution of institutions once a decision was made in Washington...

...Certainly, his meritocratic upper class is, at best, an upper middle class...

...While the creation of the plan may indeed have been run out of Washington, Ryan fails to point out that OTS officials in Texas were relied upon for input as to how the plan should be carried out...

...The Southwest Plan was devised in Washington by the former Federal Home Loan Bank Board and the former Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation and administered by the Washington staff of those now-defunct agencies...

...Again, it was the OTS officials, both in Washington and Dallas, who cut me off whenever I attempted to talk specifically about serious problems at specific thrifts...

...If our enforcement has been criticized at all, it has been for its aggressiveness...

...And if other “socially conscious potential reformers” are scofflaws, outlaws, or politically correct commissars, then pabulum is preferred to zeal, isn’t it...

...That theme is patently wrong...

...And now to Ryan’s two central criticisms...

...DANIEL N. THOMPSON New York, New York...

...There is no quarrel here...

...The author replies: Ryan’s response goes a long way toward illustrating one of the major points of the piece: that stringent banking secrecy regulations prevent a sufficiently open debate on, and reform of, the system...

...In fact, several examiners in Dallas have made it clear that they are offended by Georges’ erroneous portrayal of their work...

...Second, Ryan points out that the Dallas office is among the most efficient of OTS’s bureaus in issuing penalties and fines...

...It is unfortunate that your publication chose to rely on the allegations of one former employee-who was dismissed because he tried to sell confidential agency information for his own profit-and anonymous other sources to denigrate the efforts of examiners and supervisory staff in the Dallas region...

...Ryan says that had I contacted the Dallas Bank Fraud Task Force, investigators there would have set me straight as to the OTS’s effectiveness...

...Attorney David Jarvis in Dallas, he would have learned that OTS has consistently provided invaluable assistance to the Justice Department on criminal actions...

...I am certain that if your writer had taken the time to call U.S...

...Furthermore, he understated penalties levied against one institution for improper documentation of executive expenses...

...Vilification and its discontents E. Fuller Torrey’s article [“Oedipal Wrecks,” January/ February] on the consequences of Freud’s reductionist determinist theory was marred by the use of Jerry Rubin, the Yippie turned yuppie, as the example of a social activist whose “analysis of unconscious motives for wanting to improve the world has frequently transformed zeal into pabulum...

...Through the first 11 months of 1991, the Dallas-led Midwest Region had the highest number of cease-and-desist orders entered, removals and prohibitions obtained, and civil money penalties assessed...

...The factual errors in the Georges piece are numerous...

...Attorney David Jarvis’ office in Dallas...

...If, however, one single concept had to be used, leisure time-how much they have and how they spend it-is the surest sign...

...The stress-filled, two-career aspect to these young couples’ lives, the lack of time and money-all point to a meritocratic upper middle class...

...Attorney’s Dallas Bank Fraud Task Force in building criminal cases against those directors and officers who abused their institutions in earlier years...

...Attorney Marvin Collins in Fort Worth or Assistant U.S...

...A central contention of Georges’ article is that the Dallas office has relaxed supervision of certain institutions created by the Southwest Plan for cleaning up failed thrifts in Texas because the office was so much a part of developing the plan that it has a vested interest in ensuring the plan’s success...

...To attempt a point-by-point refutation here, however, is impractical and probably fruitless...

...LETTERS Savings and groans The article in the JanuaryRebruary issue [“Egads...

...taxpayers deserve our best efforts in supervision and enforcement, and they are getting that in Dallas and in all OTS operations across the country...

...Wood, with nearly 30 years’ experience in bank and thrift regulation, is one of the most seasoned and highly regarded regulators in the United States...

...Wasn’t Torrey aware that Jerry Rubin in his Yippie heyday advocated drug use, sex in the park, and panicide...

...The S&L Scandal Lives,” Christopher Georges] concerning regulatory supervision of thrifts by the Dallas region of the Oftice of Thrift Supervision (OTS) was so erroneous and misguided in its conclusions and supporting “facts” that, while tempted to ignore it, I am compelled to respond...

...The same pattern held true when I contacted Assistant U.S...

...First, he asserts that the Southwest Plan was created in Washington and not Dallas and therefore the Dallas office was free of any self-protective impulse to ensure the plan’s success...

...In addition, members of the Dallas staff have worked very closely with the U.S...

...and his passing comment on the German Jewish establishment’s gentility compared to many groups of East European Jews earlier in this century...

...in fact some of the figures he cites were included in the piece...

...So where are the young upper classes...

...Likewise, Ryan criticizes me for not being forthcoming in my interviews with OTS spokespeople...

...For example, his contention that examiners were told to take it easy on Southwest Plan institutions and to alter criminal referral procedures is absolutely false...

...Social class in America is defined by no one thing, but rather a host of indicators...

...The US...

...I thought he was particularly insightful on the following points: the meritocratic mind’s fear of risk...

...BERNARD ADELMAN Winthrop, Massachusetts Caste-away I particularly enjoyed Nicholas Lemann’s “Ruling by Degree” [January/February], his review of E. Digby Baltzell’s The Protestant Establishment Revisited...

...The reality today is that the Dallas staff closely supervises each institution under its jurisdiction, including those created by the Southwest Plan, to ensure compliance with our standards for safety and soundness...