'Old welder' ran roughshod over Alaska

But Allen, 72, also said something extraordinary. After the FBI arrested him, he told Judge John Sedwick, they "gave me a tape that really embarrassed me. I can't talk anyway and when they were taping it, hell I can tell I was half drunk and didn't like what I looked like to myself."

The phrase "what I looked like to myself" is riveting. Does it really take FBI video tape to make a man recognize himself for who he is? Sadly the answer is yes. And some men, by their own admission, have found their real selves in solitary confinement, on the steps of the gallows or on their death bed.

I followed Allen's public career for more than 20 years. He was driven by his appetite for money and power and played by his own rules, indifferent to public opinion. Hypocrisy was foreign to him; he was a man who never learned pretense.

His former lobbyist, the late Ed Dankworth, said of Bill Allen "Hell Mike, he's just an old welder. An old welder from New Mexico. That's all he is."

In the halls of the Capitol, in the legislative galleries, and on the few occasions when I saw him in the Juneau bars, the old welder behaved as if he were invisible to anyone not of immediate interest to him. Sure, he engaged legislators he expected to influence but the rest of us didn't exist.

I clearly remember sitting in the Baranof Hotel bar while Allen, a legislator and a legislative staffer took a table a few feet away. They began laughing at what transpired at a hearing on the state ethics law. They felt no need to hide or disguise their views in the presence of a stranger who could hear their every word.

Allen concedes he went "over the line," but does he know where the line is? He was over the line in the '80s when he concocted a scheme to provide illegal campaign contributions to legislators and was fined by the Alaska Public Offices Commission. He was over the line using former Sen. Ted Stevens' home as a crash pad.

It's true, Allen did not always get his way in Juneau, and it is unclear how well he understood the political process. He seemed to believe that if he applied enough willpower and money (usually campaign contributions) to politicians he would produce results beneficial to his oil-field service company and more generally, the oil industry. Nobody ever accused him of finesse. Among the lawmakers the government found he corrupted, Pete Kott was the only one with demonstrable political skills.

When I finished college in 1967, my Dad, Fabian, told me "If you want to see your future, Michael, go to Oklahoma or Texas." By that he meant, Alaska is about to become an oil province run by Big Oil.

Bill Allen arrived in Alaska about the time I completed college. He was just another roughneck, but his exceptional energy, ambition, and determination produced a company -- VECO -- worth hundreds of millions of dollars when he sold it.

In Juneau, he represented the views of the oil companies on taxes, pipelines, environmental regulations: Everybody in the Capitol knew it. The oil companies can tell us they knew little about Allen's relationship with Pete Kott and other crooked legislators; they can't tell us Bill Allen did not carry their water.

Alaska was good to Bill Allen. He paid Alaska back by corrupting its government in a manner no one previously dared. You don't have to watch videotape of Allen in the Baranof's 604 to recognize his motive.

For Bill Allen, Alaska was the Big Rock Candy Mountain, where a boy who grew up hungry would never be hungry again.

Michael Carey is the former editorial page editor of the Anchorage Daily News. He can be reached at mcarey@adn.com.