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“Write me a memo about that.”
“Sheldon, you don’t want me to write you a memo.”
“Yes, I do.”
“It’s a very complex subject. I don’t think you want me to reduce it to a memo.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You really don’t want me to write you a memo,
Sheldon.”
“I’m not asking you.
I’m telling you. For the
last time.”
Sheldon stormed out of the board room.
Easley got me aside and confided, “He seems really angry.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I’m not sure.”
Later, on the plane, Easley volunteered that perhaps
Sheldon felt as if he couldn’t trust me any more.
That was puzzling to me because it was the furthest thing from the truth,
but Easley had known Sheldon for more than ten years.
Even if he did not understand him he had experience with him.
Sheldon was clearly angry at what I had said, and I was, at that time,
completely ignorant as to why.
The next day Sheldon called Easley at his office in
Cambridge. I went in after the
conversation, which apparently had been pretty one-sided.
“He told me he was ready to fire you last night.
You might want to send him a short note.
Apologize. He’ll
appreciate that.”
And that’s exactly what I did.
I still did not really get it, but I spent two days
composing a one page note of apology. Those
nine sentences were among the most difficult I have ever assembled.
Near the end of that process it became a little clearer to me.
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“Jim, Sheldon wanted you to know that he got your letter
and he appreciates the thought.”
“Betty, what does that mean?”
“That’s all. He
asked me to tell you he got the letter and appreciates the thought.
He didn’t say anything else.”
Nor did I.
I didn’t see or talk to Sheldon for a while.
Some weeks later I was waiting outside the board room with Easley when
Sheldon walked out of his office. He
gave his regards to Easley then turned and saw me, saying nothing.
Resplendent in what had to be a five thousand dollar suit, he looked
healthy and hale. It was genuinely
good to see him. I smiled and
inquired, "Are you speaking to me?”
He looked me up and down.
Sheldon is an easy eight inches shorter than I am, but his intense gaze
reduced my stature so that he seemed to be staring down at me.
He didn’t crack the stern look on his face.
“Barely,” he snapped. Then he turned and walked away.
(Exhibit 479 marked for identification.)
BY MS. FLETCHER:
Q. Handing you what I have marked as Exhibit 479, this is a two-page exhibit. The first page is a facsimile transmittal from you to Sheldon Adelson, the second page is a letter from you to Sheldon Adelson. The date of the letter is March 11th, 1999. Do you recall writing this letter?
A. Yes.
Q. Why were you apologizing to Mr. Adelson?
A. I think my -- in a meeting I had questioned Mr. Adelson's instructions to me to write a memo to him.
Q. What memo?
A. It was a memo regarding ADA access to the meeting room component of the property.
Q. What instructions had he given you about writing a memo?
A. He wanted me to summarize some information in a memo.
Q. What information?
A. Information about where stairs and ramps should be going into the property.
Q. Why was he asking you to do that?
MR. MATTHEWS:
Objection to form.
THE WITNESS:
A. The reason I think he was asking me to do it was because -- well, I don't know why he was asking me to do it.
BY MS. FLETCHER:
Q. And you objected to doing this?
A. I hesitated in doing it.
Q. Why did you hesitate?
A. Because I didn't think it was something that needed to be in the record.
Q. What do you mean by that?
A. My answer is clear.
Q. Not to me. Can you explain?
A. No, I don't know how to explain that. I didn't think what he was asking me needed to be in the record. I didn't think it needed to be written down.
Q. Because it might come back to haunt you later?
A. Because I thought some of the -- I thought the subject matter was very vague and I thought it would be very difficult to write it in such a way that it would be presented fairly.
Q. What exactly was it that he wanted written down?
A. It was a summary of what the ADA requirements were versus what we were doing for access to the meeting room property.
Q. And the memo would have some difference between what the ADA required and what was actually being built?
A. Not necessarily. I don't know what the memo would have said …, but the ADA is a very complex law and it is a law that's enforceable -- it is not enforceable through the building codes, and how it should be applied and where it should be applied is not fixed. It is a law that's -- its application -- the intensity of its application is a developing thing. I didn't feel I would do it justice by putting what is essentially a hundred page book into a memo.
Q. In the second sentence of the second paragraph you say: Upon reflection, I realize that my statements to you Wednesday may have suggested that I would intentionally mislead you or conceal information from you or that I would put the interest of someone else above yours on this project. In what way did your statements possibly create that impression?
A. I formed that impression after speaking to Easley Hamner about what went on in the meeting. And I realized that, as I said in here, that one of the reasons that Mr. Adelson and I have had such a good working relationship over the years is that he has always been able to rely on me to give him an absolutely unblemished view of my part of the project. One of the things that Sheldon and I -- I think that Sheldon likes about me and certainly that I like about him is that we are very direct people and we are very honest people. And upon reflection about my conversation with Mr. Hamner, I realized that by hesitating to write a memo that I might have been forming in Mr. Adelson's mind the opinion that I was trying to hide something from him and that would destroy a large part of the basis for our relationship.
Q. Whose -- when you say you were concerned about his impression that you were putting the interest of someone else above his, whose interest were you referring to?
A. That wasn't directed to a specific person. That was merely a reflection of the fact that ultimately as the architect I worked for Mr. Adelson and that his interest was the interest that I should be serving, not anybody else's interest so there was no specific reference there.
Q. Was your hesitation to write this memo a concern over the interests of TSA?
A. No. It was more for a concern of my interests about how to frame the issue fairly.
Q. You say in the next sentence: I deserved the anger that you directed at me. What anger did he direct?
A. He asked me to write the memo and I said I don't think that I ought to write that memo. And he asked me again to write it, and I said I really don't think I ought to write that memo. And it was only at that point in the conversation that I looked up at Mr. Adelson and I realized that he was getting quite angry at me because I was appearing to defy him.
Q. I take it Mr. Adelson does not like defiance?
A. Mr. Adelson does like defiance. In fact, that's one of the things that I enjoy about him. He is a very zero-based person. He doesn't -- he doesn't want you just to say yes or just do what he says. He wants you to -- he is constantly questioning what should be done next, constantly questioning what should be done next. And I think here, in this instance, it wasn't so much my defiance that angered him as it was that it appeared that I was serving some other purpose by refusing to do this memo that he asked me for.
Q. What other purpose?
A. I think that was his perception. As I said before, I don't -- I thought a lot before I wrote this memo or this letter, and I thought a lot about what I should say and what I had said to him that night and I -- you know, I realized it was just, you know, a circumstance that had gone too far. There was nothing that I was trying to hide from him. I think I created the impression that I was trying to hide something from him.
Q. Did Mr. Adelson ever respond to this letter of apology?
A. Yes, he did.
Q. What response did you receive?
A. I got a phone call from his secretary, his assistant, Betty Yurcich, and she said Sheldon acknowledged the letter and wanted to thank me for it.
Q. Did you write the memo?
A. No, I never did write the memo.