*Herbert Haft [ b. 1920 ];

Dad's Empire *

By WALTER KIRN (NYT) 837 words

Late Edition - Final , Section 6 , Page 53 , Column 1

Business was war for Herbert Haft, but his flaw in the end was that he couldn't stop shooting, even after the battleground was his and the only targets for his cannons were his own victorious troops. When the pompadoured, cuff-linked, ballet-attending, tennis-playing, Popeye's-fried-chicken-loving founding father of American discount retailing lost his last skirmish in the fall at 84 -- his once vast holdings in stock and real estate reduced to two suburban Virginia shopping centers and his only ally a second wife whom he'd wed in a ''say I do'' mini-ceremony held in the hospital room where he lay dying -- he was indeed a lonely army of one.

Haft's was the sort of self-vanquishing career that fancy journalists like to call Shakespearean but that, with its all-American emphasis on underdog grit and up-from-nothing nerve, better resembles an Arthur Miller play. His empire started with a single drugstore, which he called Dart Drug, in the Adams Morgan neighborhood in Washington and a single, surprisingly controversial idea: sell the stuff everyone sells, but for less. Back in the middle of the last century, shopowners like Haft were at the mercy of national suppliers, who dictated retail prices for their products. Federal fair-trade laws protected this strong-arm practice, and merchandisers understood that fiddling with the price tags of brand-name goods meant losing the privilege to stock them.

But the prickly Haft wouldn't have it. He wouldn't bow -- even when goliaths like Revlon, Eli Lilly and Mars threatened to stomp his Dart Drug into the ground. Haft sued for his right to slash prices and finally won a judgment from the Supreme Court in 1960. The old, restrictive fair-trade laws fell. What replaced them was a freer, fiercer market for everything from aspirin to mascara that, as an unintended consequence, made America safe for Wal-Mart and Home Depot.

This first campaign won, Haft shared the bounty -- and much of the power and responsibility -- with his family. For Gloria, his wife, and Linda, Robert and Ronald, his children, it was a remarkably sweet deal. As the company expanded, adding auto-parts chains, groceries and commercial real estate to its holdings, the family members were awarded first-class voting stock unattainable by the public. They also enjoyed well-compensated seats on various company boards and unusually generous, unusually long 10-year employment contracts. Life was good. The family restyled itself as a clan of socialites, attending ritzy parties, buying mansions and patronizing the fine arts. Young Ronald, whose love of sunny California led him to buy two expensive houses there, established a reputation as a great playboy.

But prosperity didn't soften the old man; it toughened and emboldened him. Despite his chauffeured limo and private jet, which he used for Caribbean vacations, the stubborn, rebellious, short-in-stature Haft went on suing people and bullying rivals and playing the same litigious sharp-elbowed game that had served him so well when he was hungrier. Having pioneered low-price retailing, he joined his lawyers to explore a second unorthodox business frontier: the lucrative practice of greenmail. By threatening to take over more sizable, more solidly established companies whose stock he had already purchased in quantity, Haft forced the firms' managements to buy him off by acquiring his stock at hefty premiums. For all his sporty, artsy airs, Haft had only two pastimes that truly thrilled him: making deals and filing lawsuits.

Having gained the world through financial and legal fisticuffs, Haft turned around in 1993 and -- unwilling or perhaps unable to put down his bruised old dukes -- challenged his first son, Robert, to a brawl. He fired the boy from his lofty job at Dart and instigated what soon became an all-out internecine feud. Gloria and Linda took Robert's side, and the prodigal Ronald lined up with Dad. The attorneys rushed in like ants to a dropped ice-cream cone, crawling over everything and everyone and quietly, incrementally carrying off so much of their clients' wealth that the contest no longer had much of a point. Haft and Gloria wound up divorced, Robert and Linda walked away with cash and stock and Ronald, who had once seemed to be on the sidelines, was now welcomed back as his father's viceroy and took charge of Dart.

And then, not long afterward, Haft took Ronald to court, of course, further exhausting what was left of his empire and his energy. He had to do it, though. He had no choice. Because that was Haft's nature and the nature of the new business world that he'd helped build and shape: to slash away, to fight and go on fighting, no matter against whom, or over what.

Walter Kirn, a frequent contributor to the magazine, is the author, most recently, of ''Up in the Air,'' a novel.