The Enron Story, With a Plot as Thick as Pea Soup

Although the White House refuses to cough up details on Vice President Dick Cheney’s meetings with Enron, we surreptitiously snagged the information through other channels.

In exchange for a year’s supply of Milk-Bones, we had President Bush’s dogs slip their master a drugged pretzel, then fetch us the documents when he passed out watching football.

From there, we pieced together this exclusive inside look at the Enron scandal:

* July 31, 2001: In the first sign of trouble, Enron boss Ken Lay is warned about the company’s questionable financial dealings, including the expenditure of $2 billion on those carnival games where you try to knock over a stack of milk bottles with a baseball. “We thought we could win a really cool stuffed animal,” a memo explains. “It seemed like a great investment at the time.”

* Aug. 1, 2001: Lay promises to personally investigate and fix the problem, but winds up losing another $750 million on the basketball toss and the pingpong-ball-into-the-goldfish-bowl game. “They looked so easy,” he tells a colleague later. “Before I knew it, I’d gone through the employee pension fund.”

* Sept. 18, 2001: Enron’s board tries to have accountant Arthur Andersen straighten out the mess, but a mix-up causes Enron to accidentally hire Pea Soup Andersen, a well-known restaurant in Buellton.

* Oct. 2, 2001: Saddled with enough pea soup to fill Lake Erie (plus $250 million in Saltine crackers), Enron executives hastily arrange a series of meetings with Dick Cheney. For security reasons, the meetings take place at several of the vice president’s “undisclosed locations”: inside a phone booth in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; aboard the International Space Station; and posing as a department store Santa in Duluth, Minn. Cheney promises to consider revising U.S. energy policy to list pea soup as a “promising new alternative power source.”

* Nov. 18, 2001: Enron replaces Pea Soup Andersen with actress Loni Anderson, who quickly funnels company money into a byzantine network of dummy corporations, offshore entities and a fictitious Cincinnati radio station.

* Nov. 22, 2001: As the company’s financial picture grows dimmer, Lay urges employees to buy Enron stock. He also advises them to diversify their portfolios with investments in Kmart and Global Crossing.

* Dec. 2, 2001: Enron files the biggest bankruptcy petition in U.S. history. The Dow index soars, led by companies that make paper shredders.

* Jan. 29, 2002: Appearing on NBC’s “Today” show, Lay’s wife, Linda, tearfully says her family is near bankruptcy. “We might have to compete on ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ just to get some pocket change,” she wails. When asked if she understands the public’s anger toward her husband, she says yes, but cautions critics: “Before you judge him, first walk a mile in his custom-fitted, gold-leaf-embroidered Louis Vuitton moccasins.”

* Jan. 30, 2002: Reacting to the plight of the Lay family, the Red Cross delivers emergency rations of caviar, Dom Perignon and steak tartare.

* Jan. 31, 2002: “Today” show correspondent Lisa Myers, stung by criticism that she wasn’t tough enough in her interview with Linda Lay, conducts a follow-up segment in which she ambushes Lay with a barrage of hard-hitting questions, including: “What’s your favorite color?” “Who does your hair?” and “Which herbs and spices do you think the Colonel uses in his secret recipe?”

* Feb. 2, 2002: In the first glimmer of hope for a comeback, Enron officials announce that they have received word from Ed McMahon that the company may already have won the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.