OPINION: Bill Allen made Alaska history — and not the history that appears on plaques teachers read to tykes, writes Michael Carey.
Bill Allen, the chief government witness against Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, arrives at federal court in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2008. Allen was a former confidant of Stevens and the founder of oil pipeline company VECO Corp.
“Mike, he’s just an old welder.” So Allen’s former lobbyist Ed Dankworth characterized him to me after the two had split up over what Dankworth called “differences.” The transition from worker to owner took years, but eventually, he became the head man of VECO, an oilfield service company that contracted throughout the state, but particularly on the North Slope after the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay and construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline in the mid-1970s. Allen delivered the men and machinery to keep oil flowing.
He did this with the mother’s milk of politics — campaign contributions. And he wasn’t Mother Theresa. Allen would ask Dankworth, “Didn’t we pay for him?” after a lawmaker walked by. Dankworth would reply “Bill, we don’t talk that way around here.” Bill would go on, “All that money?” And Ed tried again, “Bill, we don’t talk that way around here.”
Bill Allen had no concept of limits, and without anyone to restrain him, he and a number of legislators — and U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens — came under FBI investigation. Convictions followed. In federal court, Allen, who had suffered a head injury in a motorcycle accident, looked like a broken old man. He often had difficulty following the proceedings, squinting miserably at the judge.
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