Legal Extortion: The War Against Lincoln Savings and Charlie Keating

In the late 1980s, Atchison was a managing partner at what was then the Arthur Young & Co. accounting firm. He directed the audit of Charles Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan and was responsible for giving it a clean bill of health. Shortly thereafter, Atchison was handed a top executive post with an annual salary of almost $1 million at American Continental, Lincoln's parent company. At congressional hearings on the Lincoln S & L debacle, Atchison refused to testify, pleading the Fifth Amendment. Here Atchison tries to salvage his own reputation; he also disturbingly exploits current anti-Washington sentiment that turns government into the villain and wrongdoers into victims. His tone throughout is belligerently defiant; he portrays Keating as under siege from a hostile enemy. As Atchison tells it, Keating was "extorted" by overzealous, vindictive regulators who regularly leaked confidential documents about their investigation because Keating dared to stand up to them. Lost in all of