Death
In 1975, the Securities and Exchange Commission uncovered a $2.5 million bribe that Black offered to Honduran president Oswaldo López Arellano in order to obtain a reduction of taxes on banana exports.
A few weeks before the scandal broke, Black went to his office on the forty-fourth floor of the Pan Am Building in Manhattan. At about 8 a.m., he bashed out the window with his briefcase and jumped to his death, landing on the northbound ramp of Park Avenue beside horrified motorists. His briefcase came to a stop on a post office loading ramp, where it was found with its contents scattered nearby.
He was remembered favorably by a number of prominent people, including Senator Abraham Ribicoff and Amyas Ames, the chairman of Lincoln Center. United Farm Workers president Cesar Chavez said that his career was proof that management could work with farm labor "for the betterment of all." Black served as a trustee of The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The American Jewish Committee, The Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, Babson College, The Jewish Guild for the Blind, and The Jewish Museum. He had also served as chairman of the Commentary Magazine publication committee.
After Black's spectacular suicide, Cincinnati-based American Financial Group, one of millionaire Carl Lindner, Jr.'s companies, bought into United Fruit.
Read more about this topic: Eli M. Black
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