Kenneth Lay: The straight shooter, or the evasive executive?(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

HOUSTON _ Somewhere deep down, beneath his humble farm-boy exterior, a fire burned in Kenneth Lay.

Those close to him saw it 30 years ago, and they called it genius, the kind of genius that tirelessly picked apart consolidated cash budgets, U.S. Treasury statements and accounting systems that blur the vision of most folks.

While working on his Ph.D. in economics, Lay walked Washington's corridors with pie charts under his arm. Something seemed amiss about the government's financial forecasts as the economy slumped during the Vietnam War. He was going to figure out why, he told his friends.

So he culled inside information from the highest levels of the Navy, the Treasury and the Council of Economic Advisers.

"One significant element was the poor quality of official projections of the expected costs of the Vietnam buildup" as well as inaccurate data, Lay wrote in his 200-page doctoral thesis, concluding that a better accounting model was needed to better stabilize the U.S. economy during war time.

Ultimately, the paper helped change government practices.

Ken Lay was that rare breed: both detail man and dreamer. And everyone back then knew he was destined for big things. But now that his Enron Corp., once the nation's seventh largest company, is in ruins, everyone wants to know why.