About Enron: CONSPIRACY OF FOOLS

March 24, 2005
BOOKS OF THE TIMES | 'CONSPIRACY OF FOOLS'
Untangling the Threads of the Enron Fraud
By CHARLES R. MORRIS

CONSPIRACY OF FOOLS
A True Story.
By Kurt Eichenwald.
742 pp. Broadway Books. $26.

In early 2000 Fortune magazine selected Enron as America's best-managed and most innovative company, and Enron's stock market valuation peaked at $73 billion that August. The following March the company announced that 2000 revenues had more than doubled, to $100 billion. The company paid its normal quarterly dividend in October 2001, announcing that regular earnings were up 26 percent and that it was "on track" to meet its full-year profit targets.