Haack Steps Down

Robert Haack, 54, president of the New York Stock Exchange since 1967, has had to deal with a financial crisis that forced 129 Wall Street firms into liquidation or merger, with pressure from Washington for closer exchange control of brokerage houses and with a Board of Governors still dominated by clubby traders who resist change. Said Haack last year: "My job is to move these people into the 21st century." In the effort, he stirred considerable acrimony among board members last November by going over their heads and bravely calling for an end to fixed commission rates on large trades. Last week, to no one's great surprise, Haack said that he will quit his $125,000-a-year job when his five-year term ends next July.

It was probably no coincidence that at the same meeting at which Haack announced his departure, the governors elected a new member to their 33-man board: Ralph S. Saul. Now vice chairman of First Boston Corp., a major investment banking house, Saul was president of the American Stock Exchange through mid-1971. He successfully reshaped the once scandal-racked Amex, and many Wall Streeters gave him higher marks than Haack for general performance. If the Big Board governors follow the recommendations of William McChesney Martin's recent study, they will select a full-time chairman and chief executive. That job may well go to Saul and the operating presidency to Richard B. Howland, now the exchange's executive vice president.

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