'Barbarians At The Gate' Authors Reflect On Wall Street's Madness

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- "Barbarians at the Gate," the absorbing tale of the takeover of RJR Nabisco, was a New York Times No. 1 bestseller. It also spawned a well-received movie on HBO. But before they could envision creating a pop-culture icon, co-authors Bryan Burrough and John Helyar had a modest goal.

"Our whole goal was writing a book!" Burrough said.

I'm not the only person who thinks "Barbarians at the Gate" is the best business book ever. But penning a classic that defined the go-go 1980s on Wall Street was the furthest thing from their minds. "We were too stupid and naïve to know what we were doing," Burrough told me when I sat down with the authors at Dow Jones headquarters.

Helyar smiled when he recalled that he and Burrough ultimately created a "part-comic, part-dramatic operetta" that reflected "the human comedy" of Wall Street at the time.

Wall Street is still governed by fear and, especially, greed today in the wake of the collapse of the securities, real estate and automotive industries. "I'll give you my 'Wall Street 101' lecture," Helyar said. "Then, the M&A artists were over-the-top in some cases but were still tethered to real corporate America."

Fast-forward to today: "Wall Street became more of a blue smoke-and mirrors" environment, Helyar said.

Helyar saw the Internet bubble-burst nearly a decade ago as a result of analysts acting as "carnival barkers." He assesses the current crisis as the work of "quants" inventing ways to exploit the financial markets.

Burrough's view is that the chaos and ruin on Wall Street is emblematic of history repeating itself. "It's exactly the same every time," Burrough said animatedly. "Wall Street produces a product that makes money. Then it is overused -- and by the wrong people."

Seizing the day

Book publisher Harper Collins has opportunistically seized the day, and recently re-released "Barbarians" to mark the two-decade anniversary of the RJR deal.

Watching and listening to the authors interacting, what impressed me was their humility. Burrough still got emotional when he described how he took his wife to a book shop in Fifth Avenue in Manhattan nearly 20 years ago so he could gaze at a display of "Barbarians" in a store window.

Throughout our conversation, Burrough and Helyar insisted that they had been "lucky" because they had close access to the deal's newsmakers, were trained in the exacting Wall Street Journal culture under then-editor Norman Pearlstine and had one another for moral and editorial support.

"Pretty much, everything I learned, I learned (at the Journal)," said Burrough, who has gone on to write other books and contributes to Vanity Fair. "The Journal ethic stays with you," added Helyar, who left the paper a decade ago. He wrote for ESPN's magazine and Web site and is now with Bloomberg News. He is the author of the well received book "Lords of the Realm: The Real History of Baseball."

Burrough's book "Public Enemies" was adapted for the movies by director Michael Mann. The film will be released next year, starring Johnny Depp (playing John Dillinger), Christian Bale and Billy Crudup.

Significance

Today, it's difficult for young Wall Streeters to understand the significance of the RJR transaction. Back in the fall of 1988, it was eclipsed only by the George H.W. Bush-Michael Dukakis presidential race.

At the time, Helyar, based in Atlanta, and Burrough, ensconced in Brooklyn, were Journal reporters on the story. Harper Collins recruited them and gave the first-time authors a mere eight months in 1989 to turn it in. (Harper Collins and the Journal, like MarketWatch, the publisher of this column, are owned by News Corp. .) The first time they met in person was the day they signed the book contract.

Today, the two regard the book with affection and pride but see it as a distant, somewhat blurry memory. They appreciate that "Brbarians" made them rich and famous and cemented their journalistic reputations for life.

Still, the writers don't want to be defined or pigeonholed by something that happened two decades ago, as if it was frozen in a time capsule. Plus, they'd like to think that "Barbarians" represented only one journalistic highlight and not a peak.

Helyar pointed out the wisdom of something that James Andrews, the noted sports orthopedist, once told him during an interview: "If you're talking about what you did yesterday, you're not doing much today."

Helyar and Burrough shrugged off my surprise that they never got around to collaborating on another book. "You don't catch lightning in a bottle (twice)," Helyar noted.

Stressing that the time had come to go off on separate careers, Burrough said: "We were ready to wear long pants."

From talking with Helyar and Burrough for an hour the other day, I got a glimpse into why their partnership was so successful. Aside from their journalistic skills, there was obviously a fondness and a shared professional respect. One frequently finished the other's sentences and they enjoyed poking fun at one another. They were the perfect foils. Burrough was glib and gregarious. Helyar balanced him by appearing thoughtful, almost scholarly.

Burrough and Helyar didn't know what lay ahead when they completed work on "Barbarians." Do they have regrets today?

"I thought," Burrough laughed, "I was going to be the next John Grisham and (he'd be) the next Stephen King."

Helyar promptly winced good-naturedly.

"Oooh," Burrough said. "I'm going to regret that, aren't I?"

What is your favorite business book of all time?

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By Jon Friedman