When he's not trying to save the U.S. from foreign oil, and making himself a little richer in the process, Dallas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is writing books about saving the U.S. from foreign oil and making himself a little richer in the process. In coming days, Crown will publish The First Billion Is the Hardest: Reflections on a Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future, in which he recounts, among many other things, his 1996 ouster from Mesa Petroleum, courtesy the deals and doings of fellow billionaire and Fort Worth investor Richard Rainwater and his wife Darla Moore, who insisted they couldn't raise money to save Mesa with T. Boone in charge. Hence, they more or less fired Pickens, who still holds a grudge. Notes Newsweek today, Pickens writes of Moore she's like a "wolverine that pisses on everything it doesn't eat."
She still likes Pickens, telling Newsweek, "I think what people don't know about Boone is that deep down he is actually -- I hate to say this -- a nice man. And he knows more about energy than anybody in the world." Only, see, he doesn't like Moore, telling The Wall Street Journal this morning: "If somebody I don't like gets in the crosshairs, I pull the trigger. ... They did things that were totally unnecessary, so that's why I said what I said." --Robert Wilonsky
