The Enigmatic Man

But politically, Ricciardi was far to the left of Allen and very much opposed to Sen. Jesse Helms. Still, he found himself liking this man who had flacked for the North Carolina conservative who fought the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday.

Perhaps Allen, as a black man, possessed an extraordinary level of tolerance or even forgiveness, Ricciardi thought. Now a lawyer in Albany, N.Y., he was never able to square it.

"So I knew there was a lot more beneath the surface than met the eye," he says of Allen. Something there, but unseen.

There was, says another friend, a reserve around Allen.

Speaking of the loose fraternity of black conservatives that includes Allen, black conservative commentator Armstrong Williams says: "He was always very private. And you always knew which buttons not to push with him and where not to go. There was this space around him. Where others were open and having fun, he was more reserved. I think there were things he kept to himself. You always sensed that.

"He was the son, the brother, the cousin that you want to put your arm around and protect," says Williams, who calls Allen a friend. "You always felt that he was fragile."

That word -- so easily, it can be interpreted as weakness. Other friends of Allen's wanted to make clear that they did not see him as weak or too tightly wound.

"I have never seen anything in Claude Allen's background to indicate instability emotionally. Nothing. None at all," says former Virginia governor James S. Gilmore III, now a partner in the Washington firm of Kelley, Drye and Warren. Allen served under Gilmore from 1995 to 2001.

Allen never appeared overwhelmed or stressed out. That was not his style. He was always unflappable. In a Duke Law School magazine profile last year, Allen described himself this way:

"I don't take compliments too seriously lest they make me prideful, and I don't take criticisms too harshly lest they cause me to become discouraged."

Even his ideological opponents could see that.

King Salim Khalfani, executive director of the Virginia NAACP, recalls Allen being cool, calm and respectful the day Allen delivered an odd package to him.

It happened in 2000, after a meeting where the NAACP was threatening a boycott if Gov. Gilmore did not end the state's commemoration of Confederate History Month. Allen, then the state's secretary of health and human resources, attended with Gilmore to help argue the state's case for a slower reconsideration of the Confederate issue.

As the meeting drew to a close, Allen approached Khalfani.

"He told me he had something for me," Khalfani said. "He gave it to me and said, 'I hope you like it.' "

It was a poster tube, which Khalfani opened back at his office. It contained a portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee, the Confederate commander, in the uniform of his surrender.

It was so strange, so galling. It felt like an ideological right hook, but Khalfani wasn't sure what to make of it.

Allen "was a gentleman, always cordial, always respectful," but he was "quite the ideologue," says Khalfani.

"For him to give the executive director of the state NAACP a portrait of Robert E. Lee was just so . . . so . . . Claude!"

Asked what he knew about the Confederate poster, Gilmore made a few phone calls to find out about it and learned that Allen had intended the poster of Lee's surrender to be "a gesture of goodwill and relationship-building."

The subtlety was lost on Khalfani. (In 2001, the state dropped the Confederate History Month proclamation.)

Contradictions

Raised by Democrats, Allen shocked his mother, the late Lila Allen, when he told her back in 1982 that he was going to work for Republicans, according to Knight Ridder newspapers.

"Oh please, don't do that," she said. "You'll ruin your life."

She was giving voice to a deep belief in the black community, given popular expression by Buddy Watts, the late father of former Republican congressman J.C. Watts. The elder Watts is oft quoted saying, in effect, that blacks becoming Republican makes as much sense as chickens befriending Colonel Sanders.

"Eventually, it's going to manifest," says Khalfani. "The contradiction is going to manifest itself in some way in your behavior, your mental stability."

It is just a theory, but one that stings.

Ashley Taylor, the old lawyer friend of Allen's, says that Allen would agree with him that the chicken analogy is just "pejorative and intentionally so."

Just as he told his mother he would, Allen dove into North Carolina Republican politics -- and into a world of controversy. In 1983, a year after college and a brief stint on another campaign, he joined the Helms reelection bid against Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt -- a bruising contest replete with racial scare tactics and innuendo.

In the heat of the campaign, Allen alleged that Hunt was associated with "the queers." He quickly apologized and called his comment an indiscretion.

But some 20 years later, he defended his remark. In his confirmation hearings for the 4th Circuit, he said he used the word "queers" to refer to people who were "odd, out of the ordinary, unusual" -- not people who were gay, according to a transcript.

In those same hearings, Allen also faced questions about his feelings toward Helms's infamous 1983 filibuster against the King holiday.

How could Allen, a black man, abide his boss's tactic? Not easily, according to Allen's 2003 statements. He spoke of his admiration and respect for King as a hero.

He said the filibuster was "the most difficult day for me in my life. . . . In fact, it was such a difficult time that I left. I left the campaign that day because I was so deeply impacted by what was going on here in Washington." (He didn't quit the campaign; he simply took the rest of the day off.)

It emerged during the 2003 hearings that Allen still believed that King was linked to the Communist Party -- just as Helms believed -- and that other black figures, like track star Jesse Owens or abolitionist Frederick Douglass, were as deserving of a national holiday.

Senate Democrats also found his record at HHS troubling.

As deputy secretary, Allen was accused by opponents of being an ideological warrior. Along with Tommy Thompson, his boss, Allen aggressively promoted the administration's faith-based agenda by redirecting grants away from groups that advocated condom use or safe sex, and toward groups that preached abstinence until marriage.

Bill Smith, vice president for public policy at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, called Allen a "hyper-moralizing" administrator.

When Thompson stepped down as HHS secretary, Allen did not get the top job. A lawyer friend with firsthand knowledge said that Allen felt marginalized when President Bush did not even consider him.

Instead, in January 2005, Allen was brought to the White House as a presidential adviser. His role was to oversee the implementation of Bush's policies, not to create them.

Praying for Him

The expansive lawns and treed lots of Cliff Pine Terrace and its large, luxurious homes are suggestive of ordered lives, blessed lives.

Inside the house with the tan brick front and the arched window over the entryway, Allen and Jack Simonds sat on the sofa and bowed their heads in prayer.

Simonds, the longtime friend from Durham, was distressed for Allen, feeling his pain.

"I just went for the purpose of coming alongside him, just as a friend," he says. "I had no intention of asking any questions. I've known them [the Allens] and I just wanted to reaffirm our friendship, no matter what. No matter what!"

Simonds did not ask Allen if the fraud charges were true. Allen would only discuss his predicament in the broadest terms, Simonds says.

"He acknowledged that this whole thing was very difficult and painful. And without having to say one way or the other what happened, he said, 'I sincerely regret any pain that may have resulted here for anybody.' "

Like the rest of Allen's concerned friends, Simonds has no idea what happened. "Whatever it is, this is my friend. I'm standing with him," he says.

He spent an hour with Allen and then they embraced like the old friends that they are when Simonds left. And as he drove away, Simonds kept praying, for the Lord's blessing for Allen and his family -- "no matter what."

Staff writer Michael Fletcher contributed to this report.