Corporate Shoot-Out At Black Rock

The mystery and suspense surrounding the meeting were enough to impress even faithful viewers of the CBS show Murder, She Wrote. For 9 1/2 hours last week the network's 14 directors locked themselves away in 35th-floor chambers at the Manhattan headquarters building, which has come to be known as Black Rock. Their agenda amounted to nothing less than a shoot-out over the future of a communications giant that has been bludgeoned by takeover bids and internal dissension for much of the past 20 months.

CBS Anchorman Dan Rather got word of the outcome just as he was finishing up the network's Evening News on Wednesday. The flustered Rather announced that CBS Chairman Thomas Wyman, 56, was "out." More startling was Rather's disclosure that Wyman's duties would be temporarily shared by William Paley, the network's legendary founder, who retired three years ago, and Laurence Tisch, the billionaire chairman of Loews Corp., who joined the CBS board only last October.

The sudden transfer of power is sure to quiet some of the turmoil that has roiled CBS, but it raises new uncertainties about the future of one of the nation's most prestigious and influential companies. While a five-member management team searches for a permanent successor to Wyman, Paley will be acting chairman and Tisch will serve as chief executive. For the 84-year-old Paley, it is a triumphant return to a throne that he had never really wanted to relinquish. But clearly the man who has captured control of CBS is Tisch, 63. The shrewd investor and conglomerateur is now far and away the company's largest shareholder, with 24.9% of its stock (Paley is next with 8.1%). The irony of Tisch's sudden rise to dominance was considerable, since the soft- spoken, bald executive first purchased CBS shares last year largely at Wyman's behest, in an effort to buttress the network's anti-takeover defenses.

Tisch had been dissatisfied with Wyman's performance for months, but the new chief executive did not win the support of a majority of the CBS board until last week. In fact, when the marathon board meeting began at 9 a.m., most of the directors apparently had no intention of firing their chairman. The turning point came when Wyman, the sole CBS executive with a board seat, announced he had secretly begun negotiations that could lead to the sale of the $5 billion company to Coca-Cola. The stunned directors, all of whom were determined to keep CBS independent, asked Wyman to leave the room. Sometime after 5 p.m. two directors told Wyman that his backing among the group was gone. He then resigned his $680,000-a-year job and left the building.

Word of Wyman's departure quickly spread to a party on Manhattan's East Side. A nebula of CBS and other journalism luminaries had gathered on the day of the board meeting at the Park Avenue apartment of Designer Mollie Parnis to fete 60 Minutes Host Mike Wallace and his bride of 2 1/2 months, Mary Yates. The already festive mood brightened considerably as an old Wallace friend telephoned over the news. There is little love lost for Wyman in CBS journalism circles, where the ex-chairman's decisions have been a target for strident criticism. Partygoers vied to congratulate a late arrival at the celebration: Laurence Tisch. Exulted one guest: "CBS has returned to its origins." Said 60 Minutes Correspondent Morley Safer: "It's back to the future. That's good news."