Texaco Says The Word Was ‘Nicholas’ Expert Claims Oil Company Executive Didn’t Use Racial Slur During Meeting On Lawsuit

The N-word used by a Texaco Inc. executive was “Nicholas” and not a racial slur, an investigator hired by the company to electronically enhance a tape of the conversation said Monday.

But company Chairman Peter Bijur said the finding doesn’t change the “unacceptable context and tone” of the recorded conversation.

Plaintiffs in a $520 million discrimination lawsuit against Texaco claim former Texaco Treasurer Robert Ulrich said “(expletive) niggers” during a 1994 discussion of the suit among company executives.

Attorney Michael Armstrong, hired by Texaco to check out the tape, said Ulrich actually said “poor St. Nicholas,” a reference to Christmas, while disparaging the black cultural festival Kwanzaa.

“The phrase ‘(expletive) niggers’ just doesn’t exist on the tape,” said Armstrong, who enhanced a digitized version of the cassette recording, removing laughter that obscured some of Ulrich’s words.

The comments have brought withering criticism of Texaco, and black leaders including the Rev. Jesse Jackson have threatened a boycott unless the company remedies the discrimination alleged by the 1,400 minority employees.

A federal grand jury is investigating whether executives illegally destroyed documents on minority hiring - a plan discussed during the tape-recorded conversation, according to the lawsuit.

Texaco is engaged in formal talks to settle the lawsuit, perhaps as early as this week, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing anonymous sources. Bijur has suspended the two executives who were at the meeting and still are employed at Texaco, Peter Meade and J. David Keough. Armstrong’s report did not address the other task Texaco has given him - to find out if Texaco officials had tried to obstruct the plaintiffs from access to company documents on the hiring and promotion of blacks.

The lawsuit alleges that Ulrich also said during the meeting, “We’re going to purge the (expletive) out of these books, though. We’re not going to have any damn thing that … we don’t need to be in them.”

It also quotes a former executive, Richard Lundwall, who made the recording and gave it to the plaintiffs, as saying, “Let me shred this thing and any other restricted version like it.”

The lawsuit’s version of the transcript of the tape also accuses Ulrich of calling black employees “black jelly beans.” But Armstrong’s report said that remark apparently was not intended as a racial slur but stemmed from an analogy used in a speech attended by Texaco executives. The colors of the beans were used to refer to different races.