Rumsfeld met with Army Sec. White to discuss Enron scandal

By

Posted 3:03PM on Monday, March 25, 2002

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday he has talked to Army Secretary Thomas White about White's contacts with former colleagues at Enron Corp. Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference that he and White discussed how White would respond to investigations of Enron's collapse last year and how White would remove himself from any Pentagon business involving his former company. Meanwhile, White wrote to a House committee Friday detailing 55 phone calls or attempted phone calls to Enron officials made from his home telephone. Those calls are in addition to 29 meetings with or phone calls from his Pentagon office to Enron officials that White admitted in January that he made. White, who was a top executive at Enron before taking over at the Army in May, had agreed with Congress to sell all of his Enron shares before the end of November. White finished selling the Enron stock he directly owned in late October, as the Houston-based energy company had begun its steep slide into bankruptcy. Earlier this month Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John Warner, R-Va., the chairman and top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote White saying they were not yet satisfied that he had fully divested his financial interests in the company. Six of the calls from his home phone came during October, White's letter to the House Government Reform Committee said. White had disclosed seven other meetings or calls during October in his January letter. White wrote that no one at Enron asked him to use his influence to help the company and he did not do so. He said that "virtually all" his conversations with former Enron colleagues "would have involved some comment or discussion relating in at least a general way to Enron's financial condition." White's critics question whether his contacts with Enron brass allowed him to sell his stock quickly enough to avoid losing more money. The company's stock plunged to just 26 cents; White had sold his shares for as low as $12.86 each, on Oct. 30. Rumsfeld said he did not want to discuss details of White's Enron contacts. "I have every confidence that Secretary White is doing his best to comply with all the requests that have been made of him," Rumsfeld said. Rumsfeld said he met with White and a top Pentagon lawyer late last year when the Enron bankruptcy first made headlines. Rumsfeld said he and White agreed that White would have nothing to do with any Defense Department business regarding Enron or Arthur Andersen, Enron's former accounting firm. Before leaving to become Army secretary, White had been head of Enron Energy Services. That Enron subsidiary held a $25 million, 10-year contract to provide utility services to the Army's Fort Hamilton in New York City.