RENO – Senator Barack Obama and T. Boone Pickens, the Oklahoma oilman turned wind farmer, met for a few minutes this morning to talk about energy and the economy.

Aides did not share the details of their meeting, but Mr. Obama took one question from a reporter, who wanted to know why he was meeting with a man who spent $3 million supporting the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign to tear down Senator John Kerry, the Democrats’ 2004 presidential nominee.

Mr. Obama looked a bit uncomfortable and then said that’s not what he planned to talk to Mr. Pickens about, according to a pool report from the meeting, “Ah, you know, he’s got a lot longer track record than that. He’s been doing, ah, he’s a legendary entrepreneur and you know one of the things that I think we have to unify the country around is having an intelligent energy policy.

“Everybody knows that if we keep on going on the same track that were going, that we are giving our wealth away, were funding both sides in the war on terror,” Mr. Obama continued. “We’re going to be, over the long term, putting enormous pressure on ordinary families here in America who just aren’t going to be able to afford skyrocketing gasoline prices and home heating prices, so this is one of those issues that I think should unify the country. That’s what we’re going to be talking about.”

Mr. Pickens has offered to pay $1 million to anyone who can disprove the accusations against Mr. Kerry made by the Swift Boat group. Mr. Kerry and others have provided substantial documentation that they say definitively proves the charges are false, but Mr. Pickens has refused to pay the bounty.