On May 19, 1994, Clinton met here with former Indian Prime Minister P.V. Rao. Rao told Clinton that India was interested in opening its centrally controlled economy up to American corporate investors.
Clinton, in turn, instructed then-Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary to lead a delegation of corporate executives to India on a trade mission.
"The mission marked the first official visit to India by a U.S. cabinet secretary in many years," Energy's internal trip report states.
Enron executives joined O'Leary on the July 1994 junket, whereupon they planted the seeds of the ill-fated Dabhol deal.
Then in January 1995, Lay accompanied Brown on the Commerce trade mission that helped seal the deal.
The Clinton administration got two federal export-finance agencies – the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corp. – to help underwrite the project by kicking in nearly $400 million in loans.
During the final negotiations, Clinton aide Thomas "Mack" McLarty rode herd on the project in Washington for Lay, his old energy-industry buddy.
He tracked the progress of Clinton's ambassador to India, Frank Wisner, who was helping speed the deal along.
Even Clinton pitched in to help his golfing partner, Lay, by sending McLarty memos and articles on the project.
(The ex-president's lobbying for the Enron deal even continued into the Bush administration, sources close to the Dabhol project say, when he visited Indian officials in Mumbai, India, in April. At the time, Enron was fighting the state electricity board for back payments.)
In June 1996, India gave final OK to Lay's project. Four days before the approval, Enron gave $100,000 to Clinton's party.
McLarty and Wisner were not forgotten. Lay snatched up McLarty for Enron when he left the White House. And Wisner got a seat on the board of an Enron subsidiary when he stepped down as ambassador in 1997.
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=12439Analysts agree that this clunker of a deal is what started the decline of Enron. So when you start your "10 years ago" crap...I suggest that for the sake of honesty...you'd better make that "16 years ago".