NEW YORK : Louis Gerstner, who went from being a cookie-man as head of RJR Nabisco to a turnaround artist at IBM, will again take on something new when he leaves the computer giant -- studying Chinese history and archeology. In Business Week's Nov. 18 edition, Gerstner said that when he retires at year end as chairman of International Business Machines Corp., he'll focus on trying to start a commission on public education reform and keep his hand in business through a private equity or small venture company.

"I've been accepted at Cambridge University. I want to study Chinese history and archaeology. I want to become a student. I want to read Chinese history and go on a dig," Gerstner said. The one-time chief executive officer of RJR Nabisco made the remarks in an interview timed with release of his book, "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?"

The book, an account of Gerstner's tenure at IBM, hits shelves on November 12. In it, the sometimes gruff executive makes light of the initial concerns about hiring someone from outside the technology field to run the world's largest computer maker, saying he was known as "the cookie monster."

Gerstner returned IBM to profits in 1993, and was known for producing quarter after quarter of earnings growth that often outpaced the industry at large, and even its own sales gains. That raised some questions about the quality of IBM's earnings, but Gerstner did not address them in the book. "Those discussions were not relevant to a book that deals with a 10-year history," he said in the interview.

In the last year, Gerstner said, the company increased its disclosure of how such items as intellectual property revenue and pension assumption contribute to earnings. "For the most part, the issues for IBM were disclosure. They were never accounting," Gerstner said.

Gerstner also defended his $27 million compensation package in 2001, saying compensation is performance driven at IBM. "If the shareholders didn't make billions and billions of dollars, I wouldn't make millions of dollars," he said.

© Reuters