In recent weeks Baxter’s life was anything but tranquil. The company’s 43-year-old former vice chairman suddenly found himself a central figure in the swirl of lawsuits and investigations that followed Enron’s spectacular collapse. Congressional committees wanted him to tell all he knew about the company’s shady accounting practices. Furious shareholders named him as a defendant in a civil lawsuit. The company’s star whistle-blower revealed him as a critic of Enron’s secretive deals. In the end the pressure may have been too much. Early Friday morning Baxter was found slumped in his Mercedes, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.
Police say that Baxter left a suicide note, but wouldn’t disclose its contents. Friends say he was devastated by the company’s demise, and anguished that he had become so prominent in the aftermath. “Cliff was just climbing the walls,” one longtime friend and former Enron colleague told NEWSWEEK. “He was extremely concerned about what was happening, about the long-term implications for him, for his family, for his children, for his life.”
Confident and outspoken, Baxter was known for his bluntness around the office. “He was very opinionated and vocal on a lot of things,” says a former colleague. “He was brilliant and crazy all wrapped up in the same person.” Baxter’s unvarnished style helped make him a star in Enron’s hard-edged corporate atmosphere, where quiet, cautious types didn’t seem to last long. He joined the company in 1991 after serving in the Air Force and a stint in banking. He rose quickly, taking on large deals. As the company’s fortunes grew, so did his own. He became head of Enron’s North American division and eventually rose to vice chairman. Still in his 30s, he was a millionaire many times over.
But Baxter’s ride wasn’t completely smooth. He reportedly clashed with Andrew Fastow, Enron’s risk-taking former chief financial officer. He was especially critical of the company’s involvement in a series of lucrative but questionable business deals with an offshore company called LJM. In a now widely circulated internal memo, Enron vice president Sherron Watkins warned CEO Ken Lay that “Cliff Baxter complained mightily to… all who would listen about the inappropriateness of our transactions with LJM.”
Last May, Baxter decided to leave the company, invoking the standard line about spending more time with his wife and two kids. Privately, some speculated Baxter had had enough of Enron’s way of doing business. One friend disputes this, saying, “It was just time for him to leave.” Whatever his reasons, Baxter left a rich man. Over a three-year period, he sold more than 577,000 shares of Enron, worth $35.2 million.
One close friend says that when the Watkins memo was made public, Baxter became increasingly anxious. “That pushed him closer to the edge more than anything,” she says. But was it enough to drive a successful, seemingly centered man to take his life? Perhaps Baxter was worried about having to testify against his colleagues before Congress and defend himself in court. He may have felt some responsibility for the hundreds of Enron employees who lost everything in a collapse he couldn’t stop. The suicide note, if it is made public, may yield some answers. But Clifford Baxter’s death will remain a gruesome symbol of a corporate scandal’s human toll.
