Dear Monte:

Suddenly, it’s 1956 again: Republicans are in the White House. The Cold War is back. It’s pedal to the metal, damn the environment, full speed ahead — the business of America is business. Big Business. Again.

Has there ever been a better time to be the CEO of a smoke-belching, Neanderthal-technology-based industrial behemoth? I think not.

By every key benchmark (and you’ll note that I didn’t use some Palo Alto-ish New Economy phrase here like “metrics”), you’ve got to admit you’ve had a sensational season:

- AmSmelt’s stock is soaring on the Dow. (Admittedly, this is mainly due to former dot-com analysts trying to cover their khakis by putting “strong buys” on real corporations, but who’s to complain?)

- The number of personal citations for your name has soared on LexisNexis, up a full 600 percent compared to same-quarter mentions in newspapers and magazines last year. (And not one mention within 25 words of the phrase “acrimonious divorce.” Bravo!)

- Inventory is down and orders are up — even with the 17 percent energy surcharge, which is 11 percent more than your actual cost. (It’s sort of like the great mail-order scam: Sell the product at full list, then tack on 5 percent for handling.)

- And your “human resources” department (sorry, but I don’t advise renaming it “personnel”) is jammed with resumes from 26-year-old MBAs who’ve “always dreamed of working for Amalgamated Smelting.”

Yes, the next few months should be smooth seas and calm sailing for Monte Stellar and AmSmelt.

Which is why I agree: It’s time to sack the advertising agency. (As Clemenceau — or someone like him — once said: “The illusion of change is often better than change itself.” On second thought, I was the one who said it. Quoting you.)

Auditioning agencies has three benefits, aside from the steak dinners at Smith & Wollensky: 1) Lots of free press. 2) Lots of free ego stroking. 3) Somebody might actually come up with an idea you haven’t thought of.

But this time, I’d urge you to pick an agency that understands you’re selling a product, not an image — and that the customer can’t look like a buffoon.

How do you tell? From my experience, I’ve found that once you’re in the conference room, the number of MTV jazz-beards on Gen Y copywriters — and ponytails on Boomer creative directors — rises in inverse proportion to how well the agency grasps these concepts.

Meanwhile, enjoy the steak at Smith & Wollensky.

Oh. One other thing, re: Moving AmSmelt’s headquarters. Yes, Monty, Boeing may have started a trend. But sorry — for me, neither Aspen nor Vegas seems like a serious place to conduct AmSmelt business. Especially in 1956.

Yours,

The Biffster.

P.S. Two other items you asked me to check into: 1) Yes, Carl and Otto (the founders’ 56-year-old twins) are deeply appreciative of the way we kept the “incident” at Harry’s Bar in London (w/ Miss Greece, during your Wimbledon trip) out of the press. They assure me they will attend the executive compensation committee meeting this year. 2) Yes, Exxon/Mobil still has a tanker named “The Condoleeza Rice.” I’m waiting for final word from my guy in the administration about the “Dick Cheney Smelting Facility.” But the initial reaction was positive.