Charles Keating

Charles G. Keating, a musician who also worked in restaurants and a clothing store, died Wednesday of cancer at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.The 22-year-old Baltimore native last worked in the fall as a busboy and waiter in restaurants in San Francisco.Earlier, he did similar work at the Mount Vernon Stable and at Chili's restaurant on Belvedere Avenue near the Gap store where he had been a salesman in Baltimore.A 1989 graduate of the Polytechnic Institute -- where he was in the A course and a member of the Astronomy Club -- also attended the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

A couple of Park School grads, Christopher Keating and Anand Wilder, seem to be making good with their band, Yeasayer. They appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien last week, then headed off on a European tour. Not that everyone's impressed. "Just think, he could have been a lawyer and gotten his ass kicked with me in federal court," said Keating's father, Anton J.S. Keating, the twice-defeated candidate for Baltimore state's attorney. Christopher Keating and Wilder are two members of the four-man band, which is based in Brooklyn, N.Y., and has been getting some good press lately in The New York Times, Spin and Rolling Stone.

Reading this book may make you wish that the late Orson Welles had taken better care of himself.He might still be with us, ready to film his next masterpiece: the bizarre story of Charles Keating -- devout Catholic, loyal family man, daring real estate developer and bank robber. A "Citizen Kane" for the 1990s.Michael Binstein, an associate of journalist Jack Anderson, and Arizona free-lancer Charles Bowden have written the best business book since "Barbarians at the Gate." "Trust Me" is journalism as Orson Welles might have practiced it -- not a cool, factual narrative, but a hilarious and rather scary tale of one of the strangest crooks of modern times.

Don't let the British accent or the double middle initials fool you. Anton J.S. Keating, the twice-defeated candidate for Baltimore state's attorney, might seem a tad too proper for Baltimore - until he starts bragging about the family. "My mother was in Caddyshack. She got hit in the head with a golf ball," Keating says. "She was also in Porky's." Keating was telling me this the other day as a way of touting his show-biz ties, which also include a brother, Charles Keating, who for years played the villainous Carl Hutchins on the soap Another World.

LOS ANGELES -- Ex-Lincoln Savings and Loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. sat in his one-man cell and ate lunch with a plastic spoon off a paper plate: a chili and macaroni casserole, a slice of American cheese, coleslaw, bread, ice cream and a choice of Kool-Aid or milk.For dinner, there was chicken patty with gravy, buttered rice, tossed green salad, bread and an apple for dessert. And a choice of tea or milk.Mr. Keating can expect at least another day of this jail-house menu while his lawyers try to get him released.

The first of "the Keating Five" senators, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., went before the Senate Ethics Committee yesterday to be cross-examined by committee members and counsel. It was not a pretty spectacle, and it suggests much uglier business next week.Senator McCain and Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, who also testified yesterday, appear to be the least culpable of the five senators accused of improperly influencing government regulators on behalf of financier Charles Keating. Robert S. Bennett, the Ethics Committee counsel, has recommended that the committee drop charges against the two.Yet consider one exchange yesterday between Senator McCain and Ethics Committee Chairman Howell Heflin, D-Ala.

U.S. alleges tricks by KeatingFormer savings-and-loan boss Charles Keating Jr. and his son financed a multimillion-dollar personal empire for themselves, relatives and friends using tricks and deception, the government said yesterday. Federal prosecutor Alice Hill made the allegations during opening arguments in the U.S. District Court fraud and racketeering trial for Keating and his son, Charles Keating III.Defense lawyer Steve Neal said he would show that all the transactions were legitimate.

WASHINGTON -- Looking for a character witness to support him at Senate Ethics Committee hearings, Sen. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona called yesterday on his state's governor, Rose Mofford, who proved more than willing to help her "young" colleague.Governor Mofford, the 68-year-old leader of Arizona's Democrats, told the Senate Ethics Committee that she had known Mr. DeConcini since he was a 10-year-old altar boy at St. Gregory's Roman Catholic Church in Phoenix. And, Governor Mofford said, Mr. DeConcini is still a helpful "young man."

THE CAPITOL Hill newspaper Roll Call ran a fake full page advertisement Thursday for a new holiday season movie.The copy says, "First there was 'The Magnificent Seven,' then 'The Dirty Dozen,' now the U.S. Senate in conjunction with the U.S. League of Savings Institutions presents a Constituent Services Inc. production of 'The Keating Five.' "The casting, by Roll Call's Craig Winneker and others on the staff, is inspired. There's Ed Harris as John Glenn, of course. He played Glenn in "The Right Stuff."

WHAT IS this strange sensation -- this new feeling about the Keating Five? Why, no, it can't be, but yet it is: human sympathy. What, sympathy for United States senators who buddied up to Charles Keating, big investor in savings-and-loans and political influence?Yep. Not because of the unconvincing, self-righteous, posturing rhetoric from some of the accused -- or their attempt to browbeat the committee's hard-digging counsel, Robert Bennett. But because they have been singled out for doing essentially what their colleagues do -- collecting campaign contributions and then helping the contributors.

THE KID in the blow-up black-and-white photo was more toddler than boy, a lad of 3 with a mop of curly blond hair adorning his tiny pate. He had his dukes up, the right fist close to his chest and the left farther out and up near his chin. "I've always been a fighter," Anton James Sean Keating said as he looked at the childhood picture of himself. It must be in the genes. His father, Charles Keating, was heavyweight boxing champion of the British army during World War II and later a professional boxer.

Charles G. Keating, a musician who also worked in restaurants and a clothing store, died Wednesday of cancer at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.The 22-year-old Baltimore native last worked in the fall as a busboy and waiter in restaurants in San Francisco.Earlier, he did similar work at the Mount Vernon Stable and at Chili's restaurant on Belvedere Avenue near the Gap store where he had been a salesman in Baltimore.A 1989 graduate of the Polytechnic Institute -- where he was in the A course and a member of the Astronomy Club -- also attended the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Reading this book may make you wish that the late Orson Welles had taken better care of himself.He might still be with us, ready to film his next masterpiece: the bizarre story of Charles Keating -- devout Catholic, loyal family man, daring real estate developer and bank robber. A "Citizen Kane" for the 1990s.Michael Binstein, an associate of journalist Jack Anderson, and Arizona free-lancer Charles Bowden have written the best business book since "Barbarians at the Gate." "Trust Me" is journalism as Orson Welles might have practiced it -- not a cool, factual narrative, but a hilarious and rather scary tale of one of the strangest crooks of modern times.

U.S. alleges tricks by KeatingFormer savings-and-loan boss Charles Keating Jr. and his son financed a multimillion-dollar personal empire for themselves, relatives and friends using tricks and deception, the government said yesterday. Federal prosecutor Alice Hill made the allegations during opening arguments in the U.S. District Court fraud and racketeering trial for Keating and his son, Charles Keating III.Defense lawyer Steve Neal said he would show that all the transactions were legitimate.

Sen. Alan Cranston says he and his lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, have evidence that several senators did exactly what he was found guilty of -- closely interweaving campaign contributions and official activities. But he won't name names. The smarmy shadow of Sen. Joe McCarthy must be smiling down on his old stomping grounds. McCarthy's declarations in Senate speeches a generation ago that his inquiries had produced evidence of Communists agents in the State Department and elsewhere, whom he would not name, put a new and ugly word in the dictionary, "McCarthyism."

The first of "the Keating Five" senators, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., went before the Senate Ethics Committee yesterday to be cross-examined by committee members and counsel. It was not a pretty spectacle, and it suggests much uglier business next week.Senator McCain and Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, who also testified yesterday, appear to be the least culpable of the five senators accused of improperly influencing government regulators on behalf of financier Charles Keating. Robert S. Bennett, the Ethics Committee counsel, has recommended that the committee drop charges against the two.Yet consider one exchange yesterday between Senator McCain and Ethics Committee Chairman Howell Heflin, D-Ala.

Sen. Alan Cranston says he and his lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, have evidence that several senators did exactly what he was found guilty of -- closely interweaving campaign contributions and official activities. But he won't name names. The smarmy shadow of Sen. Joe McCarthy must be smiling down on his old stomping grounds. McCarthy's declarations in Senate speeches a generation ago that his inquiries had produced evidence of Communists agents in the State Department and elsewhere, whom he would not name, put a new and ugly word in the dictionary, "McCarthyism."

"THERE IS but one way for a newspaperman to look at a politician, and that is down." So said Frank H. Simonds.Who he? Simonds won the first Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing for the old New York Tribune in 1917. He later became a syndicated columnist specializing in international affairs. He also wrote a five-volume history of World War I.I don't think he knew a lot of politicians. I think he spent his working life in ivory towers and dealing with the striped pants crowd in embassies and foreign ministries.

THE CAPITOL Hill newspaper Roll Call ran a fake full page advertisement Thursday for a new holiday season movie.The copy says, "First there was 'The Magnificent Seven,' then 'The Dirty Dozen,' now the U.S. Senate in conjunction with the U.S. League of Savings Institutions presents a Constituent Services Inc. production of 'The Keating Five.' "The casting, by Roll Call's Craig Winneker and others on the staff, is inspired. There's Ed Harris as John Glenn, of course. He played Glenn in "The Right Stuff."

WHAT IS this strange sensation -- this new feeling about the Keating Five? Why, no, it can't be, but yet it is: human sympathy. What, sympathy for United States senators who buddied up to Charles Keating, big investor in savings-and-loans and political influence?Yep. Not because of the unconvincing, self-righteous, posturing rhetoric from some of the accused -- or their attempt to browbeat the committee's hard-digging counsel, Robert Bennett. But because they have been singled out for doing essentially what their colleagues do -- collecting campaign contributions and then helping the contributors.