(FORTUNE Magazine) – Having once worked for an operating division of a heavy-handed parent -- ITT's Sheraton Corp. -- Joseph W. McCarthy knew he didn't care to try it again. So in 1985 when Kohlberg Kravis Roberts sounded him out about becoming chief executive of Motel 6, which the firm had just acquired, McCarthy had his qualms. These began to fade when he learned a few facts about KKR: It had two offices -- one in New York, one in San Francisco -- then containing a grand total of about two dozen people, including receptionists, secretaries, and cooks. The offices oversaw the firm's ownership interests in 27 different companies. ''It was obvious to me,'' says McCarthy, ''that they could not get involved in the day-to-day management of all of these companies.'' They certainly haven't at Motel 6. McCarthy, 56, knows because he took the job. He has found KKR to be interested, just as the partners said they would be, in policymaking and progress, as well as such matters as asset acquisitions and sales and the process of setting budgets. ''They keep their eye on the big picture,'' says McCarthy. ''I could not imagine a better professional relationship.'' And how about the CEOs who came into the KKR fold not quite so voluntarily? Peter A. Magowan, for instance, of Safeway, a company forced into KKR's arms because the alternative was a takeover by Herbert and Robert Haft. Says Magowan, 46: ''Our relationships with KKR have been fine. I have a great deal of respect for their abilities.'' For all these accolades, KKR occasionally takes off the gloves. A few years ago, when KKR owned Lily-Tulip, the firm reacted to persistent bad results by tossing out most of top management. More recently KKR attacked serious slippage at L.B. Foster Co., of Pittsburgh, by calling for help from a trouble-shooter it had used before -- Jerry Goldress, of the consulting firm of Grisanti Galef & Goldress. One of Goldress's big moves as boss was to sell off two divisions, architectural hardware and banking equipment, that the previous CEO, Edward Mabbs, and KKR had decided to buy only a year earlier, thereby hanging Foster with too much debt. Foster, with a new CEO installed, is now back to its traditional businesses, construction, tubular products, and rails, and is chugging along quite well. When a hired gun gets an SOS call, it's usually Henry Kravis or George Roberts on the line. But much of the so-called monitoring work at KKR is done by the firm's other three partners, Robert I. MacDonnell, 50, Paul E. Raether, 41, and Michael W. Michelson, 37, assisted by 13 associates. Most of the associates have a background in law, some in investment banking and accounting. Each office has a group of KKR companies reporting to it, but there is no geographical logic to the reporting relationships. For example, Owens-Illinois, of Toledo, deals with San Francisco simply because the KKR partner who knows the most about the company, MacDonnell, is located there. The KKR folk, whoever they are, will usually be pushing hard on a few fronts: Get the debt down as fast as possible; sell off anything that it makes economic sense to unload; apply a gimlet eye to capital expenditures and other costs; attack bureaucracy. At Safeway the corporate staff head count is down from 1,219 to 670. At Owens-Illinois, says Chairman Robert J. Lanigan, ''we don't have assistants to assistants anymore. In fact, we don't have assistants.'' In selling off companies, KKR has demonstrated great willingness to do battle with the antitrust authorities. A few years ago it survived a Federal Trade Commission inquiry and sold Lily-Tulip, the third-biggest paper-cup maker in the U.S., to Fort Howard, the biggest. This year, beating the FTC in court, it merged Owens-Illinois, No. 2 in the glass business, with Brockway, No. 3. At the moment, the FTC, which must be getting tired of this by now, is considering Safeway's plan to sell its Southern California supermarkets, roughly No. 5 in market share regionally, to Von's, No. 2. It appears the deal will go through. Understandably there's widespread opinion that KKR is a star at dealmaking. Among those holding that view is Thomas V. Bonoma, a Harvard business school professor of marketing who has done consulting work for KKR. He also was on the board of Child World, a toy retailer, in 1985-87 when KKR controlled its parent, Cole National. Says Bonoma: ''They're incredibly good at what they do -- just incredibly good at what I might call the ultimate transactional behavior.'' But he is not so sure that they really add value to what they own or that they're great at managing it: ''That's not to say they're bad managers. It's just not obvious to me that that's their hot button.'' In any case, KKR's managerial role at Child World ceased in 1987, when the firm decided to unload Cole National. Chairman Jeffrey Cole ended up buying back control and is enjoying independence. Which means that there is at least one company in the U.S. that KKR is probably not going to end up controlling.