Former NYSE Leader Dick Grasso Never Doubted U.S. Would Catch Bin Laden

Dick Grasso, the former head of the New York Stock Exchange, has known Imus for a long time. Therefore, he wished Charles the best in his retirement by declaring, “Free at last!”
 
In the aftermath of 9/11, Grasso was widely hailed as “the Winston Churchill of Wall Street,” Imus said; not because he is short and bald, but because of how he lead New York City’s financial community through that awful time.
 
Grasso recalled receiving a call in his office at the Exchange, about 1,000 yards from the World Trade Center, alerting him that a small plane had hit the North Tower, where the NYSE occupied floors 39 through 41. The head of his enforcement division assured him everything was fine, but one glance at the television indicated otherwise.
 
“We were tenants in that building during the ’93 bombing episode,” Grasso said. “Our folks were trapped in their offices for about six hours. When the visual came on the screen of the North Tower, and all four corners at the top of the building, Trade Tower One, were blackened…I said, ‘Get them out now.’”
 
Luckily, all NYSE employees survived the attack, which Grasso suspected was terrorism the moment the second plane hit the South Tower. On his way over to the World Trade Center site, Grasso called then Mayor Rudy Giuliani to discuss whether or not to open the Stock Exchange that day, a decision he had until 10am to make.
 
“At 10am, I either had to ring the bell to open the market, or ring the bell and close the market,” Grasso said. He spoke briefly with Giuliani, who promised to call back in 20 minutes. “Rudy Giuliani was a surgeon in terms of his responsiveness. I didn’t hear from the Mayor.”
 
Shortly thereafter, as the South Tower crumbled to the ground, Grasso began hearing reports that the city had gone “code black”—meaning that Giuliani, the fire commissioner, and the police commissioner had all been killed. “So,” he told Imus. “We rang the bell and closed.”
 
Closing the Stock Exchange is a big deal, Grasso explained, because “part of the principle that really underlies free markets and our free market capitalist system is that markets have got to be able to trade through things like tragedies, such as the terrorist attack.” Yet he was not about to put the lives of his 5,000 employees at risk. 
 
Once everybody safely evacuated the Exchange’s various offices, Grasso began thinking about how—and when—the markets should reopen. “I was on the phone with the Treasury Secretary’s top aide, I was on the phone with the Chairman of the SEC,” he said. “It was clear to me that on the one hand, we wanted to reopen as quickly as we could. But on the other hand, there was a rescue operation underway.”
 
The NYSE stayed closed the remainder of that week, as Grasso and countless other Americans hoped that hundreds—if not thousands—of people would be pulled from the massive piles of wreckage at Ground Zero. It was not to be.
 
“We needed the weekend,” Grasso sad. “The country needed the weekend to take a deep breath, and to remember the dead; but also to remember that this is America, and nothing can stop us.”
 
Given the work he has done with the U.S. Armed Forces as the Director of the Medal of Honor Foundation, Grasso never doubted America would catch Osama Bin Laden. “We’re blessed in this country to have the greatest fighting force the world has ever known,” he said. “With a commitment from the Commander-in-Chief that we’re going to get him—starting with George Bush and continuing with President BaracK Obama—there was never any doubt. The questions was, how long?”
 
All Americans should feel a sense of pride and of satisfaction today, Grasso noted, but particularly the families of those who lost loved ones on 9/11. “Most poignantly, the families of those 343 New York City firefighters, 23 New York City cops, and 37 Port Authority cops,” he said. “Because those 403 losses allowed almost 50,000 people to walk out of those buildings.”
 
Rumors have been swirling that Grasso will run for mayor of New York City in 2013, but he clarified today that two circumstances would have exist in order for that to happen: Police Commissioner Ray Kelly decides not to run, and a third party candidate—like Eliot Spitzer as an Independent—does.
 
“That would be divisive to the Democratic base, and I think a Republican would have a very good shot of winning,” Grasso said. As for a potential challenge from Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat, Grasso observed, “I think he should continue doing what he’s doing in the Congress.”
 
Selfishly, we’re pulling for a Dick/Weiner face-off in 2013.
 
-Julie Kanfer