Cross Posted:Jay Raskin
April
18, 1983, Jessie Jackson and Burger King President J. Jeffrey Campbell sign an
Affirmative Action agreement to Hire More Black Executives. Around this time,
Herman Cain, without any prior restaurant experience, becomes Burger King's
First Black Regional Restaurant Manager
“My goal was eventually to get where I am now, quite frankly. My
goals beyond this point are to become even more integral to the management of
the Burger King organization. At some point, I might like to move into division
management and become a senior vice-president and division officer and maybe
become an executive officer. If ever I were to become so successful in Burger
King that there wasn’t anything else for me to do, sure [I'd look elsewhere].
But you’re talking 20 to 25 years away at this point. Burger King is big enough
to satisfy all my ambitions at the present time[1].”
Herman
Cain, circa November 1983
In
this December, 1983 Computerworld article, Herman Cain sounds extremely
satisfied and content after starting his new job managing the Philadelphia
region Burger King restaurant chain. This is in contrast to the previous year
when Herman Cain was 37 years old and in despair. He admits to feeling trapped
in a dead-end job working for Pillsbury information systems/information
management in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He had a nice title “vice president of
systems services[2].” He received this title in 1981, after three year as
the “director of management science.” It was the policy of the company to
promote people when they were young and give them nice titles. Pillsbury had
dozens of young and fresh “vice-presidents.”
Being
granted a title of vice-president in your 30s was no guarantee of a long career
at Pillsbury[3]. For example, all the men in this picture below became Pillsbury
vice-presidents or presidents in their 30’s. Charles S. Olcott was 35 when he
was “vice president” of investor relations in1982[4]. He was 39 when he was named as President of Burger
King in 1986[5]. He was 41 in 1988 when he was forced to resign[6]. Kyle Craig was 34 in 1982 when he was appointed
senior “vice president” and director of marketing[7]. He was 40 when he was forced to resign in 1988[8]. J. Jeffrey Campbell was 37 when he became an
Executive “vice president” in charge of marketing in 1981[9], 39 when he was named Chairman and CEO of Burger King[10]in 1983 and 40 when he was named executive vice
president for Pillsbury in 1984. He was 45 when he was forced to resign in 1988[11].
Figure
1 Four Pillsbury Executives - Charles S. Olcott, Herman Cain, J. Jeffrey
Cambell, Kyle T. Craig. All were made vice-presidents in their mid 30’s, all
were gone less than seven years later in their early 40’s. All four resigned
from Pillsbury in 1988 a few months after this picture. Picture from Ebony,
Magazine, 1988.
As
vice-president of system services, Cain was probably making around $70,000 dollars
a year at the time[12]. Other vice-presidents were earning $400,000[13]. We should remember that Cain was
vice-president of a very small group of only 15 computer tech people[14]. Other vice-presidents were in charge of thousands of
people. It was certainly enough to support himself, his wife and two children,
but his father “was suffering the complications of diabetes[15].” After some five years at Pillsbury, all was not
well for Herman Cain.
Cain
describes his mental depression this way in his book:
After the headquarters project turned out successfully, I was
once again bored. Life was good – Gloria and I were healthy; we now had a
daughter and a son; we lived in a nice home; we had even started taking
vacations, which we had never done much earlier in my career. I was even
singing in the church choir and recording with a Minneapolis gospel singing
group. But my motivation had collapsed.
I was sitting in my new office on the thirty-first floor of the World Headquarters one day when I looked out the window and saw that the inflatable dome of the new Minneapolis stadium had collapsed. I realized, as I sat there, staring out the window, that what had kept me happy and motivated was the excitement, challenge, and risk of the past few years[16].
I was sitting in my new office on the thirty-first floor of the World Headquarters one day when I looked out the window and saw that the inflatable dome of the new Minneapolis stadium had collapsed. I realized, as I sat there, staring out the window, that what had kept me happy and motivated was the excitement, challenge, and risk of the past few years[16].
Cain
beautifully associates and symbolizes his mental collapse with the collapse of
the Dome in the Minneapolis Stadium. A good psychoanalyst can see how Cain uses
external images to describe his internal mental state. Unfortunately, not
having a background in psychoanalysis. Cain blames his problems on the fantasy
of “self-motivation.” He is unable to articulate or analyze the truth about his
financial and social conditions. In fact in an earlier article in Ebony
magazine, he again points to this key moment in his life, but describes the
reason for his depression differently[17].
One day I was sitting in my office on the 31st floor of the new
Pillsbury Center and I asked myself, ‘Now what?’ he recalls, ‘Coming in to sign
budgets and review administrative papers for the next 25 years didn’t quite
appeal to me.”
So Cain decided to shift gears and after talking to Pillsbury officials resigned his vice-president post to learn the fast food industry at Burger King, a Pillsbury subsidiary.
So Cain decided to shift gears and after talking to Pillsbury officials resigned his vice-president post to learn the fast food industry at Burger King, a Pillsbury subsidiary.
Cain
is trying to make it seem that he made a deliberate strategic choice in
abandoning his five year tech career to do something new. He is trying to
explain why at age 37, with no background in managing restaurants of any kind,
he suddenly shifted to this completely new field. He tries to pass it off as
simply a matter of wanting excitement and adventure. In fact, being a vice
president in a computer tech group of 15 people was a great achievement for
Cain. He had only had two years of computer tech at Purdue. He had worked alone
in his five years at Coca Cola.
He
knew too that a slew of young people were graduating every year with Masters’
degrees in computer tech and information management and had grown up in the new
computer culture. He knew that Pillsbury would not hesitate to fire him in a
moment and hire a recent graduate five years younger than him, who would be
happy to do his job work for the next five years at 2/3rds his salary.
Cain
likes to tell how his expertise and skills had caught the attention of his
bosses at Pillsbury. In fact the truth is far more likely that his deficiencies
and mistakes had caught their attention.
Cain
only describes two major jobs he did in his five years in a management systems
(basically a computer tech) job at Pillsbury. One was installing a main frame
computer and integrating information systems when the company took over Green
Giant in January, 1979[18]. While this is reasonably complicated, it shouldn’t
have taken his department more than a couple of months to accomplish this. He
says that this went “smooth as silk[19].”
He
claims that because of this, a year later in 1980, he was made vice president
in charge of systems services. In both his new book and his 2005 book, “They
think you’re stupid,” Cain claims credit for a successful “smooth as silk” job
which was done while his predecessor, John Haaland, was still in charge of his
15 person group. Claiming credit for other people’s work is not unusual for
Cain. For example, he claims repeatedly in later interviews to have settled a
large lawsuit against Godfather’s which was settled before he arrived[20] at
Godfather’s. In his 1983 Computer World interview, he was more modest, saying
that he was a strategic officer on the project and a lot of people from both
Green Giant and Pillsbury were involved[21]:
Management’s concern during this integration process was that we
avoid a computer disaster, keep some key people from leaving and be sure we
could run some systems critical to the business. So they perceived it as more
of a people issue than a technical issue. Between the two organizations, we had
an abundance of technical expertise, in terms of information systems people,
model builders, programmers, etc. It was a question of getting them all to come
together, establishing a direction, some goals, and then getting people to
follow that.
If there was an abundance of technical expertise to avoid a computer disaster and install the mainframe computer, what exactly did Cain do on this project? He describes his role this way, “one of the main responsibilities I faced was how do I integrate the information systems function — meaning the people, the systems, the hardware and the budgets — into one unit.”
If there was an abundance of technical expertise to avoid a computer disaster and install the mainframe computer, what exactly did Cain do on this project? He describes his role this way, “one of the main responsibilities I faced was how do I integrate the information systems function — meaning the people, the systems, the hardware and the budgets — into one unit.”
As
Pillsbury’s organization for information systems consisted of 15 people, we may
assume that Green Giant’s was roughly the same size. Cain’s major achievement
of his first two to three years at Pillsbury’s appears to have been helping
“strategically” to get two departments of around 15 people each from two
companies to work together as one department in one company.
Once he took over John Haaland’s job in 1980, he now faced his first major job on his own in 1981. He had to organize a move into a new headquarters for 2,000 people in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This should have been a relatively simple affair with 15 people in his department, like the installation of the Green Giant mainframe, but apparently it went very badly. In the 1988 Ebony article, he describes it this way:
Once he took over John Haaland’s job in 1980, he now faced his first major job on his own in 1981. He had to organize a move into a new headquarters for 2,000 people in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This should have been a relatively simple affair with 15 people in his department, like the installation of the Green Giant mainframe, but apparently it went very badly. In the 1988 Ebony article, he describes it this way:
Within five years, he had become vice-president of corporate
systems and services. However, the new title came with a formidable task of
overseeing the construction of Pillsbury’s World Headquarters Project, a job
that required the moving of 2,000 employees scattered around the Minneapolis
area into the new corporate headquarters. Making matters worse, the project had
been running overbudget and had been stalled by contractual disputes.
Cain rose to the challenge as he and his staff moved quickly to
resolve the disputes among the contractors and those between the new building’s
owners and some of the prospective tenants. With that done the project moved to
an on-time completion and came in under budget. For his work, Cain gained
recognition among Pillsbury’s senior management as a guy who could get things done[22].
Cain
tells us that, “the new title came with a formidable task of overseeing the
construction of Pillsbury’s World Headquarters Project, a job that required the
moving of 2,000 employees.” Part of being a vice-president of a company’s
information management group is that you get information to people who need it.
Cain was apparently supposed to do certain things and did not realize that they
were his responsibility as a new vice-president. The running over budget and
other problems were his responsibility. Cain adds some important details about
the problems he encountered on this project in his new book[23]:
It wasn’t long before I realized what a decision-making
coordination, and communications nightmare my assignment was turning out to be!
The project was over budget, behind schedule, and headed for a “crash” with our
future landlord. Language ambiguities in the lease contract caused conflicts
over who would be responsible for paying for changes to the project—and we’re
not talking peanuts, but millions of dollars in real money.
I asked the previous executive in charge to call a meeting so
that I could meet everyone responsible for various pieces of the project.
Walking into the conference room where more than twenty people were sitting
around a large table, I wondered “who are these people?
After
four years at Pillsbury, it is 1981 and Cain is in charge of his first major
project. It was what should have been a relatively simple move of 2,000 people
and equipment into a new office building. Yet, by his own admission, the
project turned into a “nightmare,” crashing all around him and he has to call
on the previous man in charge to help him set up a meeting. At the meeting, he
doesn’t even know the people who are key to making the move.
I soon found out. There sat a chief accountant, a chief
architect, a chief attorney, a chief construction consultant, a chief
contractor, a chief engineer, a chief moving manager, a chief planner, as well
as all of their co-chiefs! Said “Chiefs” looked at me as if to say: so how are
you, a young whipper-snapper going to straighten out this mess.
Frankly, I had no idea…The World Headquarters Project was an all consuming mess!
Frankly, I had no idea…The World Headquarters Project was an all consuming mess!
Cain
had made an “all consuming mess!” of his first important project as
vice-president. He had to go to the CEO and COO of Pillsbury, Bill Spoor and
Win Wallin to get things straightened out. In Cain’s narrative, he just went to
them for advice. Obviously, when you go to the CEO and COO of a major
multi-billion dollar corporation, it is not just for advice. Obviously, they
had summoned Cain to a meeting to straighten out mistakes that Cain had made.
Cain’s narrative jumps over this and he announces, “the project was completed
ahead of schedule and under budget. Five years later Bill Spoor presented me
with the Pillsbury Company’s Symbol of Excellence in Leadership Award.”
On
his first major assignment, he had messed up badly, mis-coordinating a
relatively simple location move for 2,000 employees and equipment. Why should
Spoor present him with an award five years later for excellence? In his 2005
book, Cain says that Spoor presented him the award two years later[24]. I found
no evidence of Cain ever having won the award two or five years later or
Pillsbury ever gave anybody an award called a “Symbol of Excellence in
Leadership Award.” Since the name of the award is awkward, as is much of Cain’s
phraseology in his speech making, my conclusion is that Mr. Cain made up the
award for himself. I hope somebody can send me evidence that he did receive
such an award.
Rather
than being successful in the one major project he was in charge of at
Pillsbury, it was more likely that Cain was perceived as a major failure by the
leadership at Pillsbury. For the next year, he apparently did not receive any
important assignment. This must have been part of the cause of his depression.
We
now come to a problem of dates. Cain often repeats how he decided to start his
career over, quit his job, underwent nine months training and became the
Philadelphia Region vice president in charge of 400 Burger Kings. He is never
specific about the dates for these events. This makes it difficult to check on
the facts in the case.
READ MORE BELOW THE FOLD with verification links..
READ MORE BELOW THE FOLD with verification links..
Cain
claims on his website that he left Pillsbury and went to Burger King in 1982.
However, Cain has said that his decision-making moment to change the course of
his life came on the day that the Minnesota Stadium Dome collapsed. Actually,
the roof of the Dome deflated three times, on Nov. 19, 1981, December 31, 1982[25], and April 14, 1983[26]. Which dome collapse is Cain describing?
Trying
to find when Cain took over his new post as Philadelphia regional manager for
Burger King was a problem. I could only turn up announcements in the Black
press of the time. One announcement was inthe Afro American, a
Baltimore, Maryland weekly black newspaper from the time. The newspaper was
dated September 10, 1983[27]. This seems to suggest that Cain was promoted August
or September 1, 1983 to be Philadelphia region manager. A Monthly magazine, Black
Enterprisenotes the promotion in its December 1983 issue. Magazines often
had lead times back then between layout and publication date of two or three
months so this seems to confirm the August-September 1, 1983 date. However, a
Jet magazine from August 8, 1973, has Cain referred to as a region vice
president[28].
from
Jet Magazine, August 8, 1983. Burger King President Campbell next to Cain at a
Washington D.C. Party, around August 1983. Campbell had signed an agreement
with Jessie Jackson's PUSH to Bring More Black Executives into Burger King four
months earlier
Cain
says his fast track training for the Burger King job lasted nine months.[29]. We know that for three of those months he was
managing a store. In the December, 1983 Computer World[30] article we read:
I learned by actually working all the positions in a Burger King
restaurant: up through assistant manager levels, restaurant manager level,
district manager level, franchise district manager level, area manager level. I
moved along as I became more familiar. It’s training, but I actually had to
hold these jobs. I was actually responsible for a restaurant for three months
during this time. I was the manager responsible for opening and closing, all
the day-to-day activities, hiring and firing, equipment maintenance, you name
it. That’s the way you understand the guts of the business .
As
an aside, let me note here that Cain likes to say how he started from the
bottom up. In fact, his training at levels less than a store manager lasted at
most two months[31]. In his training program, he simply learned all the
daily customer related restaurant work (cooking, taking orders, cleaning,
replacing equipment, counting money and receipts, opening and closing, etc.) in
two months, he moved on and managed a single restaurant for three months. He
was district manager, franchise manager and area manager for four months. This
was hardly starting “at the bottom,” this was a training program designed to
install Campbell as a top executive at Burger King. Pillsbury management
skipped him over hundreds of loyal Burger King employees who had worked hard
for five and ten years or more and already had experience. Cain knew that he
was not going to work at any of these jobs for more than a few days or weeks.
He knew that he was going into a high level management position. If he knew
from the beginning that he was going to manage the 400 store Philadelphia
region is an open (and important) question.
At
first glance, the nine month training period fits right into Cain’s scenario if
we imagine that his career epiphany or depression happened when the Minnesota
Metrodome had its December 31st 1982 collapse. January 1 to September 1 is
exactly nine months.
However, Cain, in recounting the story sentimentally in an article for Parade Magazine in 1995, wrecks that time line[32]:
However, Cain, in recounting the story sentimentally in an article for Parade Magazine in 1995, wrecks that time line[32]:
Cain
turned to Win Wallin, the president of Pillsbury, for help. “I can’t get to
your job from where I am,” Cain told him. “What do you recommend?” Wallin
suggested getting on the operations training track in the company’s Burger King
division, which could lead to being a regional vice president. “If you want to
run a business,” Wallin said, “you have to start at the bottom and learn it
from the ground up.” It would be an unconventional move. Cain would have to
resign his title, give up his company car and nice new office, and forgo stock
options to start over, flipping hamburgers with the broiler crew.
As
with every major decision in his life, Cain turned to prayer for help. He got
down on his knees: “Lord, what do you want me to do?” When his wife noticed him
lost in reflection and meditation, she told him, “Don’t worry—I know you can do
this.” Cain accepted her words as a sign from God that he was making the right
move.
In
April 1982, Cain said goodbye to Pillsbury headquarters. That same day, he got
word that his father had died of complications from diabetes. He was only 57.
Cain’s
father died March 29, 1982[33]. This is a helpful clue, but the Time line doesn’t
fit for a couple of reasons. The first problem is reconciling it with the dome
collapse. The first dome collapse was over five months before this and Cain
tells us that he made his decision to change jobs just after the dome collapse.
Second, this would mean that Cain spent from April 1982 to September 1983,
taking 17 months to do the program he says that he did in nine months. Of
course, there is also the possibility the news sources for that September
announcement may have been announcing old news. This would put his coming to
Philadelphia in January, 1983.
Also
there’s a possibility that Cain saying that he left in April fits the third
Dome scenario. This would mean it was April 1983, not April 1982 that Cain left
Pillsbury. However, this would mean that his training was actually for four
months not nine. This time line doesn’t reconcile the facts either.
It
is impossible to completely reconcile the four dates.
1) Cain makes decision to pursue new career when dome collapses (Nov. 19, 1981, Dec 31, 1982, or April 14, 1983)
2) Cain leaves Pillsbury (farewell party March 27, 1982, when his father dies
3) Cain undergoes nine months training.
4) Cain becomes Burger King Philadelphia regional manager (August or September 1983 suggested by Black press of the time).
1) Cain makes decision to pursue new career when dome collapses (Nov. 19, 1981, Dec 31, 1982, or April 14, 1983)
2) Cain leaves Pillsbury (farewell party March 27, 1982, when his father dies
3) Cain undergoes nine months training.
4) Cain becomes Burger King Philadelphia regional manager (August or September 1983 suggested by Black press of the time).
The
most likely scenario is that Cain made his decision with the first Dome
collapse on Nov. 19, 1981. This leaves us with a question of why it took this
“man of action” five months to leave his job and begin his training in April,
1982. This would have him becoming regional manager nine months later in
January, 1983. However, why then does the black press suggest a date eight or
nine months later – August or September for Cain getting his job?
The
next most likely scenario is that Cain makes his decision to leave with the
Dome collapse on December 31, 1982. He immediately goes into a training program
and becomes regional manager by August or September 1983. He simply makes up or
mistakes the farewell party on March 27, 1982.
Hopefully
someone will clarify the dates of these events at some point.
As
Cain describes it, quitting a secure $70,000 a year program to go through an 18
month management training program with teenagers to get a fast food management
job was a gutsy move. It isn’t a gutsy move, it is an insane move. It is a move
one would only do out of desperation, if one had no choice. Cain makes it seem
as if he stopped by the office of the President of Pillsbury, Wim Wallin to
seek some fatherly career advice. This is a highly unlikely scenario. According
to Cain, Wallin just happened to suggest the Burger King training program. Cain
went home and prayed and with trepidation Cain immediately decided to follow
his boss’ suggestions and handed in his resignation.
It
is far more probable that Wim Wallin called Cain into his office. He did not
offer Cain the choice of staying in the field that he had been working in for
almost 10 years, information/systems management. It is far more probable that
Cain was given an ultimatum: a management job at Burger King after a short
training program or be fired. The only choice that Cain had was to go on the
open market and look for a job or accept Wallin’s offer. Both were bad choices
that could ruin Cain’s life and that is why he prayed.
Under
this scenario, we have to ask why Wallin was so anxious to have Cain move to
Burger King when Burger King didn’t need any of Cain’s background talents in
math and computer tech. They could have picked any liberal arts College
graduate to do what Cain was about to do. The answer is that there was one
thing that Cain had over any college graduate. He was a black man with five
years seniority at Pillsbury. Pillsbury didn’t want to fire Cain, even if he
was incompetent, because they didn’t want a discrimination lawsuit. On the
other hand, J Jeffrey Campbell president of Burger King needed a black man like
Cain. He needed a black man because he was working out a deal with Jessie
Jackson to get Black executives into Burger King.
On
March 17, 1983, at Burger King’s headquarters, in Miami, Florida, push had come
to shove. Jessie Jackson’s PUSH organization had reached an agreement with
Burger King President J. Jeffrey Campbell. Jackson had called off an announced
boycott of Burger King. The Miami Herald reported:
Figure
3 Jet Magazine, May 9, 1983 Burger King President Campbell signs PUSH agreement
with Jessie Jackson to bring more Black Executives into Burger King.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, head of the Chicago-based Operation
PUSH, announced a “far-reaching mutual aid agreement” had been reached for
greater minority participation within all areas of the Miami-based company…
That involvement will be in “franchising, employment at all
levels, procurement, advertising,” said J. Jeffrey Campbell, president of
Burger King USA…
Operation PUSH had been negotiating an agreement with corporate
officers for six months. Jackson let the officers know that Wednesday’s session
would be the last before a national boycott would be called[34].
Jackson
had good reason to target Burger King for its discrimination. A year later,
fast food rival MacDonald’s got hit with a $50 million dollar discrimination
law suit. A Philadelphia Daily News article on the MacDonald’s law suit
noted noted[35]:
Operation PUSH, the civil-rights group founded by Jesse Jackson,
began looking at Burger King after its black operators voiced complaints
similar to those of McDonald’s minority franchisees.
“We feel the system is designed to keep us in set
neighborhoods,” said Pettis Norman, president of the Burger King Minority
Franchisee Association. ”We feel we have been locked into less-than-successful
operations.”
Norman, who played tight end for the Dallas Cowboys for nine
years, said there are only 60 black or Hispanic Burger King operators and they
run only 140 of the 3,500 restaurants in the chain.
Burger Kings run by minorities have annual sales volumes that
are $200,000 to $250,000 below the national average of $800,000 to $900,000,
Norman claimed.
Pillsbury
had been sued for racial and sexual discrimination in 1977[36]. It was able to get the suit thrown out on
technicalities in 1977 . The agreement with PUSH did not stop a law suit
against Pillsbury in 1984 for not promoting blacks. The PUSH agreement was a
good deal for both Campbell and Burger King and Jessie Jackson. Jackson got
some money and helped black people, Campbell avoided law suits. Also Campbell
probably recognized that the majority of his customer base was black and it was
time to start stop the systematic discrimination that had been going on at
Pillsbury.
While Jackson and Campbell reached an agreement on March 17, 1983[38], this agreement was not signed until April 18, 1983 . The Miami Herald reported:
While Jackson and Campbell reached an agreement on March 17, 1983[38], this agreement was not signed until April 18, 1983 . The Miami Herald reported:
A $450-million trade covenant signed Monday by the Burger King
Corp ., its Minority Franchise Association and Operation PUSH will bring blacks
into the mainstream of the Miami-based company’s corporate structure and
provide as many as 20,000 new jobs, the organizations say.
The four-year agreement sets goals for minority employment and
participation in management and introduces new initiatives, including the
hiring of UniWorld, a black-run advertising agency, and more minority
contractors and suppliers.
Burger King set a goal of 21 per cent black employees and
promises to distribute those jobs among the upper as well as lower levels of
the company. The restaurant chain will make available to black owners 15 per
cent of its franchises, or 548 stores, by mid-1987. It will also spend 15 per
cent of its advertising budget with a black ad agency.
For
Cain, admitting that he had been a failure in his information management job,
admitting that he was forced to enter a field that he knew nothing about at the
age of 37 and admitting that he only got a job managing Philadelphia Burger
Kings because he was a black man with seniority, needed to fulfill a quota was
to admit reality. Cain, a fanatical Christian all his life did what fanatical
Christians are taught to do when faced with an overwhelming depressing reality:
lie and make up fantasy stories that glorify themselves and God.
We
know that Campbell started negotiating to get more black executives with
Jackson six months before the March, 1983 agreement or October, 1982. However,
Burger King management must have known of PUSH’s plans for a black boycott much
earlier. This explains the real reason Pillsbury moved Cain from Pillsbury to
Burger King some time in April, 1992 or early 1993. Cain’s depression was over
the fact that he was being forced to move to a new job he did not want by
Pillsbury management, it was not Cain being called by God like the old
testament prophets as Cain insinuates.
To
summarize, the evidence suggests that Cain was not successful at his job at
Pillsbury. The evidence indicates that Jessie Jackson’s PUSH organization’s
threat of a black boycott of Burger King moved Pillsbury to transfer him from
his job at Pillsbury to a highly visible position as the only upper level black
manager in Burger King running Philadelphia Area Burger Kings.
Cain
claims that as manager of 400 Philadelphia Burger Kings he turned the worst
performing Burger King region into one of the best. In my next blog, I’ll look
at the publicly available numbers to show that this is another reality
challenged bit of self-glorification on Mr. Cain’s part.
[i] December 5, 1983, Halbrecht, Herbert Z., Computer
World 17, Moving Out and Up to Executive Offices.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Jay Darling became executive vice president in
charge of operations and support systems in 1984 at the age of 34. At 35, he
was made President of Burger King. At 37, he “resigned.” 7/22/1986, N.Y.
Times, Financial Desk: Burger King President Quits, pg. 11.Jerome
B. Ruenheck became president and chief operating officer of the Burger King Corporation
in 1980 at the age of 41. At 46, he “resigned.” Before him, Louis P.
Neeb, was 41 when he became president of Burger King in 1980, He was 43 when he
resigned in 1982. 1/14/1985 N.Y. Times, Financial Desk: President
Resigns at Burger King, pg. 2.
[4] Feb 16, 1987, Nation’s Restaurant News,
Burger King chief plays peacemaker; Olcott faces management challenge in new
role as president
[5] Oct. 27, 1986, Edwards, Joe, National
Restaurant News, Burger King Names Olcott President.
[6] Oct. 20, 1988, Washington Post, Pillsbury
Might Sell Burger King
[7] June 21, 1982, Herald Staff, Miami Herald, Craig
Promoted at Burger King. Craig was promoted after 4 years at Burger
King.
[8] June 13, 1988, Star Tribune, Second Pillsbury
executive resigns – Led full-service restaurant group
[9] June 8, 1981, Dougherty, Philip H., N.Y. Times, Back
at Burger King.
[10] June 10, 1983, Merzer, Martin, Miami Herald, Brinker
Resigns as Burger King Chief.
[11] Above, Second Pillsbury executive resigns
[12] Joan Lefkowitz, a 35-year-old director of
corporate human resources at Pillsbury’s Burger King said she was making
$50-60,000 in a 1984 article. Cain, as a computer specialist was probably not
making much more. January 9, 1984, Miami Herald, Askari, Emilia, Still
Lonely at the Top for Women. Cain himself later said, “I was making
$70,000-plus,” Cain said with a chuckle, “and next thing I knew I was working
in a Burger King restaurant in Hopkins, Minn.” Knowing that Cain tends to
exaggerate everything, we should take this as the maximum he was possibly
making. from July, 20, 1987, Anthony, Neal St., Star Tribune, In a Short
Time, He Turned it Around.
[13] May 23, 1980, Lescaze, Lee, Washington Post, Pillsbury
Officer Picked by CBS. And Sept 2, 182, Miamia Herald, Burger King
Chief Gets Extra $350,000.
[14] Above, Moving Out and Up to Executive
Offices.
[15] Herman Cain, This is Herman Cain: My
Journey to the White House, Threshold Editions, pg. 48.
[16] Ibid, pg. 49.
[17] April 1988, Lyons, Douglas, C, Ebony Magazine,
The Godfather of Pizza. pg. 82
[18] January 31, 1979, Nashua Telegraph, Pillsbury
Acquires Green Giant Firm.
[19] Above, This is Herman Cain, pg. 46.
[20] The lawsuit by franchisee, Concept Development
Inc. was settled in March 1986, two weeks before Cain was appointed to
Godfather’s. See March 20, 1986, Wall Street Journal, Pillsbury Unit
Settles Suits With Concept Development Inc.
Cain
had nothing to do with the settlement. For his falsely taking credit for it,
see, for example, September 6, 1987, Omaha World Herald, Jordon, Steve, Godfather’s
Chief to Double Number of Pizza Restaurants.
[21] Above, Moving Out and Up
[22] Ibid.,
[23] Ibid., pp 47-48.
[24] Cain, Herman, They Think You’re Stupid:
Why Democrats Lost Your Vote and What Republicans Must Do to Keep it,
Stroud & Hall Pub, 2005, pg. 191.
[25] Dec. 31, 1982, Miami Herald, Roof
of Minneapolis Metrodome Deflates in Snow Clearing Accident.
[26] April 16, 1983, N.Y. Times, Minneapolis Dome Collapses for the Third Time in 18 Months
[27] September 10, 1983, Afro American, People
in the News.
[28] August 8, 1983, Jet, Burger King Hosts Minority
Students in Nation’s Capital
[29] Above, This is Herman Cain, pg. 58.
[30] Above, Moving Out and Up.
[31] Feb, 1988, Black Enterprise, This Pizza
Man Delivers.
[32] http://www.parade.com/news/2011/10/herman-cain-i-am-the-american-dream.html (October
30, 2011).
[33] http://www.geni.com/people/Luther-Cain/6000000013872073472 (October
30, 2011)
[34] March 17, 1983, Miami Herald, Burger King Joins
Push for Minorities.
[35] March 8, 1984, Geller, Andrew, Philadelphia
Daily News, $50M Suit Challenges Big Mac Black Franchisee: I was kept
from White Areas.
[36] http://openjurist.org/554/f2d/825/donaldson-v-pillsbury-company (viewed
Oct 29, 2011)
[38] April 19, 1983, Miami Herald, Burger King Corp
Sets Goals for Increased Minority Hiring.
