the authors' contention that some companies are well suited for the rigors of an LBO, while others are not. As for RJR Nabisco, it is important to remember that an LBO is a creature of time. In most cases its success or failure can't be determined for (several) years. The events in this book constitute the birth of an LBO; at this writing, the reborn RJR Nabisco is barely a year old. The baby looks healthy, but it's too soon to predict its ultimate fate" (Burrough & Helyar, 1990, p. x).
If this is so, then why have the authors sub-titled their book, "The Fall of RJR Nabisco"? In any case, the story they tell is as much a tale of the continuing fall of the United States as it is the fall, or fall and re-rise, of a particular firm. This claim requires a description and discussion of the economic, social/cultural, legal, political, and technological environments which prevailed at the time of the LBO attempt and which affected the firm at that time.
It is amazing that neither President Ronald Reagan nor President George Bush is mentioned in the book --- or at least not significantly enough for their names to make it into the book's index. It is amazing because there is an intimate connection between the circus of greed surrounding RJR Nabisco during the leveraged buyout process and the national atmosphere of unregulated capitalistic greed nurtured during the 1980s by Presidents Reagan and Bush. Considering that the major events covered by the book occurred in the final months of the Reagan Era, this circus of greed might be seen as a last gasp of the avaricious groups and individuals which and who had prospered most during that era.
While Burrough and Helyar fail to note the connection between the prevailing national economic, political, sociocultural and other environments and the fiasco at RJR Nabisco, other analysts do not fail to do so. Adams and Brock note that the
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