e President Al Gore and a former Republican National Committee chairman as its co-directors SO that it would have access to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Jim Cicconi Anticipating this moment, in general if not in specifics, Armstrong had spent much of 1998 looking for a superstar chief counsel. After considering several high-profile political figures, including at least one who turned out not to have a law degree, he settled on someone who was not a household name but had politics in his DNA. Jim Cicconi had worked for a Texas attorney named James Baker while he was at law school at the University of Texas. When Baker moved to the White House as President Ronald Reagan's chief of staff, Cicconi trailed along as a special assistant. He joined the Akin Gump law firm in 1985, returning to the White House for two years as deputy chief of staff to President George H. W. Bush in 1989. His specialty at Akin Gump was regulatory law, but what he really did was lobby and plot political strategy for companies like Mobil, Pfizer, and AT&T. Lean and youthful-looking, with a shock of light brown hair falling over his forehead, he still pitched for an after-hours baseball team in suburban Virginia. He also was tireless in pitching his clients' causes on Capitol Hill and at the various regulatory agencies that had fingers in their businesses or around their throats. He could have sharp elbows when he was crowded, but he generally preferred to trade favors. Cicconi was not an obvious choice for general counsel of AT&T. He had little experience in corporate law; however, the company had plenty of attorneys on staff or on retainer who could handle such mat- ters as contracts and litigation. But while AT&T's name was usually enough to open any door in Washington, Cicconi knew what to do when he got to the other side of the threshold better than most. He knew how to channel ergs of energy around the corridors of power until he had amassed enough to turn the great turbines of the regula- tory and legislative machinery in the a