he wrote, "said the plan was scrapped last week because of unresolved internal disputes."3 Cable Craziness On September 30, 1999, I received a handwritten fax from the New York office of the Baker & Botts law firm. "This is crazy!" it began in Leo Hindery's scrawl. "There is no way that I committed to this, which came to me unsolicited over the transom, without first talking with AT&T general counsel Jim (Cicconi) and then with Mike, both of which I did before I got back to Riordan." Hindery was reacting to a note from Armstrong chiding him for trying to charge the AT&T Foundation, which I headed, for a $1,000,000 grant to "LA 2000," a pet project of Los Angeles mayor Dick Riordan to celebrate the millen- nium with a sports and entertainment festival. Apparently, somebody had decided that a donation would be helpful in securing the mayor's support for the MediaOne license transfer that was being considered by the city council. But there was no way the foundation could be used for something like that, and I had complained to Armstrong. Hindery's note tried to shift the blame. "The use of the Foundation was not my idea, I assure you, nor was the decision to proceed mine." I wondered what Hindery was doing at Baker & Botts. As far as I knew, that firm wasn't representing AT&T in any current matter. I knew that John Malone used Baker & Botts, and I wondered if Hin- dery was getting its advice on how to get out of his employment con- tract with AT&T without losing options worth millions. The day before the TCI merger was announced, TCI had given Hindery a new contract with a grant of one million restricted shares, worth $38.7 million. On the very day of the announcement, AT&T entered into its own employment contract with Hindery. It reduced the term of his employment to a flat five years, promised him two years' compensation if he were fired, and allowed him to retain his restricted stock grant, which, by the fall of 1999, was worth about $65 million, nearly double its original value. But to reap the full benefit of t