No book worth reading is easy to write, and this one was

harder than most. It could not have been done if there had not been a large

number of people who were prepared to help us discover the truth about

Investors Overseas Services--even when it was embarrassing or painful for

them to do so.

We lost count of how many people we talked to, after the number

passed five hundred. Apart from IOS salesmen, secretaries, and execu-

tives, there were bankers, brokers, accountants, oilmen, policemen, govern-

ment officials, and lawyers. There were IOS s competitors, and IOS s cus-

tomers. The particular difficulty was that, in the nature of the case, these

people were scattered all over the world. The three authors conducted

interviews in Geneva, Zurich, London, New York, Munich, Berlin, Paris,

Rome, Luxembourg, Denver, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Washington,

Miami, Toronto, the Bahamas, and some other places; even then that did

not cover all the places where IOS did business. Researchers and corre-

spondents made inquiries for us in Philadelphia, Seoul, Tokyo, Bangkok,

La Paz, Sao Paulo, Beirut, Montreal, Athens, M~ilaga, Manila, Taipeh,

Tel Aviv, Tehran, Madrid, Diisseldorf, Hamburg, Stockholm, Sydney,