James, I know you won't agree with me on this but I would suggest that Bush wants Fastow, Skilling and Lay each either convicted or indicted prior to the election next year. It removes a potential issue.
BTW, there is a new book on Enron. The name of it is 24 Days and it was written by two Wall Street Journal reporters, Rebecca Smith and John Emshwiller. I have picked up a copy, though it may be a couple of months before I get to it.
smartpros.com
Enron's Implosion: Reporters Tell How They Unraveled Scandal
Aug. 19, 2003 (USA Today) — In October 2001, mighty Enron was hailed by many as a master of the corporate universe. Three weeks later, the energy behemoth shocked the business world by admitting to the shaky accounting that led to its collapse.
Written by Wall Street Journal reporters Rebecca Smith and John Emshwiller, 24 Days chronicles their investigative pursuit of what was to become the most notorious corporate scandal in recent years. Beyond a few flaws, 24 Days is a fast-paced, enjoyable read and the best of the Enron books yet.
The authors shine in how they stripped away the megahype that had turned Enron into a juggernaut.
As the story unfolds, it's clear they know more about Enron's problems than its hapless former board of directors and the see-no-evil analysts on Wall Street.
Before Enron's downfall, former top executives Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and Andrew Fastow were treated like business royalty. Enron was ushering in an era of high-powered commodity trading, and the company's future seemed limitless.
But in August 2001, Skilling suddenly resigned as CEO for "personal reasons." He tells Emshwiller that he quit because of Enron's sinking stock price -- a curious explanation. Like street detectives, Emshwiller and Smith slowly piece together the mystery.
The two reporters hunched over their laptops and pored through government filings, court papers and private investment documents. Online searches of Enron's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission uncovered a maze of Enron-related entities.
The authors also got much help from confidential insiders. "Stay with it," one e-mailer wrote. "You are about to topple a $20 (billion) house of cards."
Another source leaked key documents to them on the secretive partnerships run by Fastow, Enron's former chief financial officer, who was indicted last year on fraud charges.
The reporters' legwork found that Enron bosses bamboozled many into believing their too-good-to-be-true financial figures. In reality, Enron in 2000 hauled in $1 billion in net income on $100 billion in sales -- "grocery store margins," says a rare critical analyst. And several executives were running partnerships and accounting vehicles allegedly set up to hide debt and pump up earnings.
At the height of the scandal, The Wall Street Journal assigned 48 journalists to its "Team Enron." Ultimately, the media, government investigators, shareholders' attorneys and an Enron committee dug up enough damning details about Enron to sink the company.
On the downside, 24 Days lacks big-picture analysis. The authors devote only six pages to the broader impact of Enron on the accounting industry, Wall Street and all public companies. Nor do they scrutinize the government regulators and law-enforcement agencies that failed to police rogue companies such as Enron.
Publisher HarperBusiness is marketing 24 Days as a "true crime tale." But the book lacks flesh-and-blood characters at the heart of the corporate misdeeds action. Most of the key players aren't talking publicly yet because of legal matters.
Of necessity, 24 Days is written from the reporters' narrative viewpoint as investigators. Their tales, though, cannot compare with the stories of those who lived the ordeal.
The most moving chapter in the book, for instance, covers the suicide of Clifford Baxter, the Enron executive who shot himself in his Mercedes-Benz, and a brief telephone talk with his angry widow.
Likewise, several chapters on the fall of Arthur Andersen, Enron's longtime auditor, and the failed merger between Enron and rival Dynegy, come alive with colorful insights from key participants.
The book's last flaw? It was published too early. Every good drama cries out for a denouement.
Unfortunately for readers, most of the suspected wrongdoers have yet to come to trial. Their tales won't be told until all the Enron-related trials and lawsuits play out -- hopefully before Enron becomes a vague memory.
-- Edward Iwata
24 Days: How Two Wall Street Journal Reporters Uncovered the Lies that Destroyed Faith in Corporate America by Rebecca Smith and John R. Emshwiller, HarperBusiness, 400 pages, $25.95
© 2003 USA TODAY, a division of Gannet Co. Inc. |
