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    The first key relationship, in fact, was with Pinkney Walker. Walker was drawn by Lay’s brains and ambition and quickly became his mentor. “We just hit it off with each other from the first,” remembers Walker. “It was always inevitable that he would be a man of wealth.” After a lifetime of pinching pennies, Lay was eager to start making money. But after graduating Phi Beta Kappa in economics, he remained in school to get his master’s degree after Walker convinced him that he would be better off in the long run with a master’s on his résumé. Lay finished school in 1965.
    For the next six years, Lay paid his dues: first in Houston, at Humble Oil (a forerunner to Exxon), where he worked as an economist and speechwriter while taking night classes toward his Ph.D., then in the navy, in which he enlisted in 1968, ahead of the Vietnam draft. Originally intended to become a shipboard supply officer, perhaps in the South China Sea, Lay was abruptly reassigned to the Pentagon. This assignment introduced him to Washington. Lay later attributed such critical turns in his life to divine intervention, but in this instance, there was no miracle involved: Pinkney Walker had pulled some strings for his protégé. Instead of putting in his tour of duty at sea, Lay spent it conducting studies on the military-procurement process. The work provided the basis for his doctoral thesis on how defense spending affects the economy. At night he taught graduate students in economics at George Washington University.
    At each of these early stops, Lay received a taste of life at the top. At Humble, he wrote speeches for CEO Mike Wright; at the Pentagon, he recruited a high-level officer to provide support for his work as a lowly ensign.
    By then Lay was a father of two. He was married to his college sweetheart, Judith Diane Ayers, the daughter of an FBI agent from Jefferson City, Missouri. They met in French class, and like so many others, Judie recalls being drawn by Ken’s “maturity and dependability.” Ken and Judie wed in the summer of 1966, after she completed her journalism degree. Ken was 24, Judie 22. Their children, Mark and Elizabeth, arrived in 1968 and 1971.
    Before joining the navy, Lay had promised Exxon (the name had been changed from Humble) that he would return to the company. But once again, Pinkney Walker had other ideas. President Richard Nixon had just named Walker to the Federal Power Commission—then the agency regulating the energy business—and Walker wanted Lay as his top aide. The new commissioner placed a call to Exxon’s CEO, urging him to let Lay off the hook. “I made it clear to him he was making a friend,” says Walker.
    Though Walker wound up staying only 18 months in Washington, it was long enough for his young deputy to make an impression. In October 1972, the Nixon White House tapped Lay for a new post as deputy undersecretary of energy in the Interior Department. He became one of the administration’s point men on energy policy. Lay’s new government position paid him a higher salary than was typical for such rank, thus requiring a special exemption from the U.S. Civil Service Commission. Interior Secretary Rogers Morton made the request. “The potential of an energy crisis is of immense proportion,” wrote Morton. Without the exemption, “the Department of the Interior cannot hope to attract a man of Dr. Lay’s stature and unique talents.” Lay was 30 years old.
    What a time it was to be making energy policy for the United States! Or rather, what a time it should have been. In early 1973, shortly after Lay began his new job, the country suffered electrical brownouts and natural-gas shortages. Then came the Arab oil embargo. Pump prices soared, and people had to line up for blocks to get gasoline for their cars. Government officials warned Americans to curtail long vacation trips. After decades of consuming ever more energy, the country was in the midst of a full-fledged energy