Bill & Ted’s adventure ends

Old Ted Stevens and his buddy Bill Allen can tell you a thing or two about how it's done in Alaska. They stand for the good-ole-boy network that Sarah Palin, Republican pick for Veep, claims to have routed in the name of 'change' when she became state governor two years ago.

There were the times Ted and Bill would head to Ted's cabin, snag a salmon or two, and throw them on the grill while chomping cigars and sipping whisky to keep the evening chills at bay.

Later, when both had made their names and fortunes, they'd fly to the Wild West deserts for weekends in the sun, quitting heavy food and hard liquor for white wine and salad because that was said to be good for a man. "We'd call it Boot Camp," says Allen. "Trying to get off some pounds."

As the years went by, Ted Stevens, now 84, became the longest-serving Republican senator in Washington and the most powerful man in Alaska. He is a legend of American pork-barrel politics, insisting it is his job to get Alaska its share of the national bacon.

Bill Allen, 71 (above), became one of the wealthiest oil men in America. He started out as a roughneck mechanic in the oil fields of New Mexico, saw his chance on America's Last Frontier and went north to found oil-services and construction company VECO. The problem is federal prosecutors believe the cigar-chomping friendship has too much to do with VECO's success and Sen Stevens's personal material comfort.

Stevens is in the dock this week in a court in Washington, accused of seven counts of concealing more than $250,000 in graft from his campfire friend who had all along been lobbying for government grants and contracts. He could serve five years for each count.

And Allen has betrayed Stevens to testify for the prosecution. So far, he has told the jury of how he 'swapped' a brand new $44,000 Land Rover for a 1964 Ford Mustang and $5,000. He suspected that he was getting the "raw end of the deal", but didn't complain because he "liked Ted".

His next story describes how VECO crews took time off from building pipelines to fit Stevens's house (left) with new floors, a wrap-around deck, garage, heating system and a professional Viking cooking stove in a $250,000 renovation.

All this, Allen now swears, was in return for Stevens using his Senate seat to help VECO win government pipeline contracts in the late 1990s. The FBI started snooping around when other companies complained they were shut out of the deal, and Allen has already pleaded 'guilty' to bribing state legislators. He says the prosecutors asked him to "help get the guys I bribed, and they told me if I did that they wouldn't mess with my kids. That was it, I guess."

Stevens is a tough old guy who survived a hardscrabble Depression childhood, drove himself to Alaska in his own '47 Dodge in the winter of 1952, and lived through an air crash that killed his wife at the airport in Anchorage which is now named for him. He is not giving up: he still argues that he does not need bribing to fix up business for Alaska, and would have paid for the improvements if he had been sent the bill.

He is running for re-election to a seventh Senate term when America goes to the polls on November 4, and if he is not by then a convicted felon barred from office, he will probably win.

Sarah Palin had nothing to with his comeuppance: the investigation into Alaskan graft was well under way before she ran for governor. 'Troopergate' and the free-ranging interests of her First Dude, Todd Palin (left), suggest when it comes to Frontier politics, not a lot has changed. But Palin has been careful not to offer the old stager her endorsement. ·