EICHENWALD, Kurt 1961-

PERSONAL:

Born 1961, in Dallas, TX; married; children: three. Education: Graduated from Swarthmore College, 1983.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Dallas, TX. Office—New York Times, 636 Eleventh Ave., New York, NY 10036. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Broadway Books, Random House, 299 Park Ave., New York, NY 10171-0002. E-mail—kewald@nytimes.com.

CAREER:

Author and journalist. New York Times, New York, NY, investigative business reporter, 1987—. Worked as a speechwriter for Walter Mondale's presidential campaign.

MEMBER:

Sixteen Feet, all-male a capella vocal octet, founding member.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Finalist, Goldsmith Prize, 1998; two-time finalist, Pulitzer Prize; two-time winner, George Polk Award for excellence in journalism.

WRITINGS:

Serpent on the Rock, HarperBusiness (New York, NY), 1995.

The Informant: A True Story, Broadway Books (New York, NY), 2000.

(Author of introduction) Tracy Pride Stoneman and Douglas J. Schultz, Brokerage Fraud: What Wall Street Doesn't Want You to Know, Dearborn Trade Publishing (Chicago, IL), 2002.

Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story, Broadway Books (New York, NY), 2005.

ADAPTATIONS:

The Informant: A True Story is being made into a motion picture by director Steven Soderbergh.

SIDELIGHTS:

Kurt Eichenwald is an investigative business reporter for the New York Times. In a career starting in 1987, Eichenwald "has been taking complex stories and, through a combination of intellectual immersion and investigative drive, slowly and deliberately unraveling them for readers," commented Sasha Issenberg in a biography of Eichenwald posted on the Swarthmore College Bulletin Web site. Eichenwald graduated from Swarthmore in 1983 with a degree in political science, and "worked in various jobs in media and politics, including a speechwriting position for Walter Mondale's campaign," Issenberg reported. In 1987 Eichenwald landed a position in the clerical pool of the New York Times. Although reporters are rarely hired from the clerical ranks, the program still includes a month-long assignment to a news desk at the paper. Eichenwald was assigned to the business desk. Ten days later, in October, 1987, "the stock market crashed. Eichenwald was thrust into covering Wall Street," Issenberg wrote. Since 1987 Eichenwald has expanded his reporting range to cover differing areas of business, including patents, health care, and accounting. "Business is the only thing that's really great to write about anymore," Eichenwald remarked in Issenberg's article. "It is the last area of society where there is power that can affect people's lives for better or worse and can be largely unchecked."

Eichenwald's first book, Serpent on the Rock, tells the inside story of the massive investment scandal of the 1980s, which involved the securities firm Prudential Bache. As Daniel McGinn explained in Newsweek, executives of the firm "conspired to get mom-and-pop investors to put their life savings into deals that were destined to go bust before the prospectuses ever left the printing shop." The firm defrauded up to 340,000 customers of a combined $8 billion, and was subsequently investigated by federal prosecutors, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, and state securities regulators. In Trial, John S. Jaffer wrote, "The book is written in a highly readable style, and the subject is well documented and thoroughly researched." In Economist, a reviewer noted that Serpent on the Rock is "minutely researched, the tale unfolds via countless episodes and reconstructed conversations, each described, weather and all, as if the reader had been there at the time." Chi Chi Sileo wrote in Insight on the News that "this book has it all: suspense and horror, greed and pure malice, along with heartbreak and the eternal, valiant struggle of the little guy against the forces of evil. To top it off, it's a true story."

In The Informant: A True Story, Eichenwald draws on material he gathered in the mid-1990s while researching a price-fixing scandal involving the food product manufacturer Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). ADM made few products that were ever purchased directly by consumers, but most Americans have probably eaten a product containing corn syrup or other food additives and ingredients manufactured by ADM. Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service contributor Jerome Weeks explained that Chairman Dwayne Andreas "lobbied to keep the price of sugar high so his corn syrup made billions," Weeks commented. ADM also made considerable contributions to politicians. "Part of the Watergate scandal involved ADM cash," Weeks wrote.

In The Informant, Eichenwald tells the story of Marc Whitacre, an ADM executive who turned FBI informant at his wife's urging and helped bring ADM to justice. Whitacre, however, concealed several secrets of his own, not the least of which was that he was embezzling millions from ADM even as he was helping the government assemble a case against the company. While researching, Eichenwald interviewed more than 100 people, methodically recording the events of the six-year investigation that uncovered the scandal, and used the material to write what Weeks called "a nonfiction thriller, a 'novelization of history'—in this case, about business fraud, legal conniving, and police work."

Weeks also noted that although Eichenwald does not have an overly literary style, the book is "a marvel of clarity and compassion." Eichenwald told Weeks: "I had to keep five plots going, and let people know only a bit about each, one at a time, yet they all feed into each other. I spent so much time charting plots I worried I'd never actually write anything." Eichenwald's detailed approach was applauded by critics. Washington Monthly contributor Robert Weissman described the book as "intricate and intriguing … and a thrilling read."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, July, 1995, David Rouse, review of Serpent on the Rock, p. 1845.

Business Week, September 25, 2000, "Pulp Nonfiction at Archer Daniels," review of The Informant: A True Story, p. 21; July 2, 2001, "Pack the Swimsuits—And the Paperbacks," review of The Informant, p. 21.

Business Wire, December 20, 1994, "HarperBusiness Signs Story of the Most Destructive Investment Scandal of the 1980s," p. 1220.

Economist, October 28, 1995, review of Serpent on the Rock, p. 101.

FTC: Watch, December 20, 2000, John M. Connor, review of The Informant, p. 9.

Insight on the News, September 18, 1995, Chi Chi Sileo, review of Serpent on the Rock, p. 30.

Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, October 11, 2000, Jerome Weeks, "'Informant' Lost Himself in His Role," review of The Informant, section K, p. 1957.

Newsweek, July 17, 1995, Daniel McGinn, review of Serpent on the Rock, p. 57.

Progressive, May, 2001, Kellia Ramares, review of The Informant, p. 44.

Publishers Weekly, July 3, 1995, review of Serpent on the Rock, p. 44.

Trial, February, 1996, John S. Jaffer, review of Serpent on the Rock, p. 72.

Washington Monthly, November, 2000, Robert Weissman, review of The Informant, p. 52.

Washington Post Book World, October 1, 2000, Russell Mokhiber, "Grim Reapers," review of The Informant, section X, p. 6.

ONLINE

Booknotes Web site,http://www.booknotes.org/ (July 22, 2004), Brian Lamb, interview with Kurt Eichenwald.

CNN Web site,http://www.cnn.com/ (January 23, 2001), review of The Informant.

NewsBios Web site,http://www.newsbios.com/ (July 22, 2004), Dean Rothbart, "Kurt Succeeded when So Many Others Might Have Quit," profile of Kurt Eichenwald.

Swarthmore College Bulletin Web site,http://www.swarthmore.edu/ (July 22, 2004), Sasha Issenberg, biography of Kurt Eichenwald.*