by Mark Spivak
In 1945, a weak and dying Franklin Roosevelt had flown to the Pacific for his last summit with Churchill and Stalin. Against his better judgment, and perhaps because he was too tired to fight it, FDR gave in to Churchill’s half-assed plan to carve the bulk of the Middle East into three massive superstates: Kabulistan, Sumeristan, and Persepostan. There had been nothing but trouble since, and, up until recently, the worst-case scenario was Persepostan. In 1979, fundamentalist Muslims overthrew the American-backed dictator and established an Islamic state. They seized control of the U.S. embassy and took more than fifty hostages who were held in captivity for more than a year. While the hostages were eventually freed, the people of Persepostan were not: Islamic law was rigidly enforced, violators were routinely stoned to death, and personal expression outside the boundaries of religious life was non-existent. Now they were expanding their sphere of influence by backing the New Caliphate in Sumeristan.
“Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I urge all members of this Committee to vote against the ill-advised Cuba treaty. It will be nothing less than the first step toward the Communists attempting to reassert their global reach, and it does not deserve the attention of the Senate.” He looked at his watch. “One minute and fifty-six seconds, dammit.”
“Thank you, Mr. Caldwell,” said Wallko. “Next we’ll hear from the ranking Democratic member, Mr. Kaplan of New York.”
“Thank you, Mr. Chairman.” Getting Marcus Kaplan on board had been a coup for the administration. The Senator had been critical in the past of Khaleem Atalas’ deteriorating relationship with the Israeli Prime Minister, and Capitol insiders assumed that his support for the Cuba treaty was linked to promises of enhanced foreign aid and defense assistance to the state of Israel.
“You know, when my children were little, I used to read them a story every night. And before I left the room, they would always ask me to check underneath the bed for the bogeyman. Because, you know, they were convinced that he was lurking under there and would pop up the minute I said goodnight.
“I’ve known Senator Caldwell a long time and have a lot of respect for him, but he and I are simply looking under different beds. When I look, I don’t see a bogeyman. When Mr. Caldwell looks, he sees the specter of the New Caliphate and their 50,000 followers. But here’s the thing: last time I checked, we had about a million and a half troops in the U.S. armed forces, plus nearly another million in the National Guard. And those troops are the bravest, best trained, and best equipped in the world. Currently we have 100,000 of them stationed in Kabulistan mopping things up in the wake of restoring that country’s legitimate government.
“So I’m not worried about the bogeyman of the New Caliphate, because I realize that those troops could be repositioned back into Sumeristan and defeat the terrorists without breaking a sweat. Whether or not we have the political will to do that is another debate, but we all know it could be accomplished easily.
“This treaty will be a Godsend to the Cuban people. It will help alleviate the hardships they face, and it will also welcome Cuba back into the community of nations. It is the morally right thing to do. I support it, and I urge all my colleagues to do so.”
When the speeches were finished, Wallko called the roll. As expected, the treaty failed by a vote of 11-8, and would not be forwarded to the full Senate for approval or disapproval. All nine Republicans voted against it; Wallko and Senator Insfield of South Carolina were the two Democratic defections.
In the Oval Office, Khaleem Atalas and Joel Gottbaum watched the proceedings on C-SPAN.
“Shit,” said the President when the results were in.
“No worries, no surprises. We were expecting this.”
“I guess I was hoping Curt could charm them at the last minute.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Gottbaum.
“Exactly what I said I’d do. I’m going to issue an executive order lifting the trade embargo. I don’t need Congress for that—JFK levelled the embargo by executive order in the first place. Then I’m going to reopen the U.S. embassy and normalize relations. And after the U.S. flag is flying over Havana again, I’m going to send an autographed picture of it to Insfield and Wallko.”
Chapter 7
Despite growing up in the affluent Town and Country suburb of St. Louis, Sheldon and Richard Haft had no idea their family was wealthy.
“I actually thought we were poor,” said Richard. “We were always working. We had jobs after school and on the weekends. Every minute we weren’t studying or playing sports, we were earning money. It was my father’s way of not spoiling us. During the summers, we’d go out to Montana and work on the ranch.”
In 1939, Jacob Haft purchased a 350-acre tract in rural Montana. It was a working farm with hundreds of head of cattle, thousands of chickens, and well over a hundred acres of wheat. The boys toiled from sunrise to sunset assisting the ranch hands, who were given explicit instructions not to go easy on them.
“I remember being really depressed at one point,” recalled Sheldon. “We had spent the summer cleaning chicken shit out of the coops while our classmates were swimming in the country club pool. When school started again, I told a friend of mine that I looked forward to the day when we could afford to join the country club. My classmate looked at me in disbelief. ‘Are you kidding?’ he said finally. ‘Your father could buy and sell my family five times over. Hell, he could buy the country club.’”
Jacob himself was the product of a severe German upbringing, and he was determined never to coddle his children emotionally. He left the hugging and kissing to his wife and steered clear of any display of affection with his sons. “We knew he loved us,” said Sheldon, “but he never showed it. I think it was all part of his strategy to make us better businessmen.”
Haft’s absolute insistence that his sons not grow up to be playboys succeeded better than he had hoped. By the time they were in high school the boys had both an old-fashioned set of values and a sense of caution about money. To make sure they didn’t become overly cautious, Jacob was constantly educating them about the risks and rewards of entrepreneurship. Sheldon remembers one July day when he and his brother were home on summer break from their engineering studies at M.I.T. They spent the day with their father, touring a series of local copper mines. Almost without exception, the mines were dilapidated and on the verge of bankruptcy. Copper had been in high demand during the Korean War, but since the Armistice that demand had become insignificant.
“So,” asked their father that night at dinner, “what did we learn today? What did all those mines have in common?”
“They were depressing,” said Richard. “Output was down drastically, and the equipment was deteriorating.”
“They all looked like they’d be out of business in a year,” said Sheldon.
“You’re partly right.” Jacob smiled. “They were depressing, of course. But here’s what they had in common: I’m going to buy all of them.”
“What?” Simultaneously, the boys exploded with incredulity.
“What on earth for?” asked Sheldon.
“You’ve heard of air conditioning?” asked his father patiently.
His sons nodded.
“Well, copper is an essential material in the construction of air conditioning units.”
“But there are hardly any of them,” said Richard.
“At the moment, you are correct. But twenty years from now, almost every home in America will be air conditioned, along with most cars—there are already models that offer it. And when that happens, we’ll have the market cornered on copper.”
He turned out to be right, and the boys never forgot the lesson: Think and plan decades ahead, bide your time, and make your killing down the road. It became one of the central precepts of their business careers. Eventually, they were to apply the same axiom to their political activities. Of the two, Richard was always more willing to risk a public
profile, while Sheldon preferred to quietly manipulate things behind the scenes.
By the 1970s both brothers had completed their MBA degrees and were back home working for Haft Petroleum. They had fallen easily into the pattern that was to continue throughout their careers: Sheldon was Jacob’s anointed successor and heir apparent, while Richard was the idea man, the creative spark plug that made the business work. As Jacob grew older, he gradually decreased his role in the company and placed more responsibility on his sons. Sheldon became President and CEO, while Richard was Chief Operating Officer.
They took control of Haft Petroleum at the worst possible time. Nixon had just resigned, the Vietnam War was over, and the country had sunk into one of the worst recessions in the past century. As the decade of the 1970s limped toward a conclusion, things got even worse. America’s problems with Persepostan led to an oil crisis of unimaginable proportions. Gasoline was being rationed, and lines at many service stations coiled around the block. Consumers were on waiting lists to purchase fuel-efficient cars. Oil companies were about as popular as sexually transmitted diseases.
The Haft brothers were unperturbed. They embarked on an ingenious expansion plan that effectively took the country’s energy crisis and converted it into a corporate asset. While their competitors drilled feverishly for oil around the world, Haft bought businesses that manufactured parts for drills and rigs. They expanded into coal mining, trading of petroleum coke and delivery of propane gas. They purchased the largest wastewater treatment plant in the United States. When the brothers took over, Haft Petroleum had $100 million in revenues; five years later, it hit the $1 billion mark.
The brothers responded to this milestone by holding a press conference and announcing that they were changing the name of the company to Haft Industries, in honor of their father. In the years to come they expanded into real estate, building shopping centers and apartment complexes around the country. They became one of the world’s largest producers of nitrogen fertilizers. They were the major player in cattle, with more than 500,000 acres of ranch land under their control, and also built more than 4,000 miles of pipeline to transport oil, natural gas, and chemicals. Over time, the $100 million company they inherited from their father grew into the largest privately held business in the United States, with annual revenues totaling $125 billion and a profit margin of nearly 10 percent.
As their business grew, so did their involvement in politics. In 1977 they created the Freedom Institute, the country’s first conservative think tank. It was followed by the Democracy Foundation, the Sheldon and Richard Haft Foundation, Americans for a Free Society, and several dozen other organizations that reflected their views. The brothers micro-managed these groups as thoroughly as they did Haft Industries, making sure they never swerved off the ideological track. Over the years, their think tanks and foundations churned out position papers that formed the basis of the conservative revolution in America. Most importantly, the groups allowed the Hafts to remain in the background and exert their influence on the system anonymously.
When Khaleem Atalas received the Democratic nomination , the brothers were panic-stricken. They perceived Atalas as a dangerous Socialist, a man who would tax them to death, nationalize health care, and pile so many government regulations on them that they would barely be able to operate. Aided by the Democracy Unchained Supreme Court decision, they drastically increased their personal contributions and used their extensive network of contacts to raise a fortune for the Republican candidate. It didn’t work. The electorate was fed up after eight years of George Cane, and resented his pointless invasion of Sumeristan. Atalas was elected easily, but what was even more annoying to the Hafts was the realization that they had been outwitted.
“The electoral map for national politics had changed,” said Richard Haft. “The country was so polarized that there were only about 12 to 15 percent of people in the middle who could be swayed one way or the other. The Atalas folks targeted that group with surgical precision. They had less money than we did, but they used it far more effectively. We probably spent a hundred million dollars running ads that were aimed at voters who agreed with us in the first place.”
Four years later, they also realized that they had over-estimated their ability to defeat a sitting president. And so it happened that Sheldon and Richard sat in their St. Louis offices reviewing the purloined iPhone recording of Jasper Marshall addressing the faithful near the Mexican border south of San Diego.
“Well,” Richard asked his brother after they had watched it twice, “what do you think?”
“Damn.” Sheldon shook his head. “I’m not sure. He’s got passion, obviously. He’s got guts, brains, and balls. He’s certainly a good speaker, as you said. Is he a Savonarola without an audience? We won’t know for sure until we get him out here and talk to him.”
“That won’t be easy.”
His brother yawned. “It won’t be as difficult as you think. This guy obviously needs funding as much as he needs direction. If you get the right people to approach him, he’ll jump at the chance to talk to us.”
“You could be right.”
“You handle it, Dickie. Let’s get him out here.”
“Will do.” Richard paused. “And speaking of guts, brains, and balls, what did you think of that Foreign Relations Committee vote on Cuba?”
“Brilliant.” His brother laughed. “I’m sure a lot of people thought the entire spectacle was engineered by us.”
“Wallko’s a good man. Hell, he’s a gem. It’s hard to believe he’s a Democrat.”
“Well, he’s an old-fashioned Democrat—a Harry Truman kind of guy. Somebody you can reason with.”
“That’s why I think he might fit into the grand scheme here.”
“I have to admit, your plan is intriguing. And God knows that Democracy Unchained didn’t do us much good, despite all the effort we put into getting the case made into law. The only thing it accomplished was convincing a large chunk of the population that we were the Devil incarnate.”
“Agreed. That’s why I also have an idea of what to do about it.”
Sheldon leaned back in his leather chair, removed his glasses and grinned. “I thought you might.”
“I say we get the decision repealed.”
“How do you propose we do that?”
“There are a couple of different possibilities. I’ve commissioned some studies on them.”
“Well, even if we’re seen to engineer the reversal, it won’t do much for us in the eyes of the public.”
“The hell with the public,” said Richard. “I say we make the arrangements behind the scenes, then issue a statement in favor of it. At the very least, we get to have some fun with the state-controlled media. And as you say, the decision isn’t doing us any good.”
“I like it.” Sheldon nodded. “Full speed ahead.”
Chapter 8
Two months after the second inauguration of Khaleem Atalas, the Haft brothers’ plans to disrupt the president’s agenda suffered what would be referred to in the political world as a “hiccup.”
In a dramatic nighttime raid, several teams of Navy Seals killed Salman Al-Akbar. The operation was the culmination of nearly a year of surveillance. The leader of the worldwide terrorist network called Husam al Din had been hiding in a compound outside the capital of Kabulistan, within walking distance of the Police Academy—in fact, the Superintendent had been a frequent guest of Al-Akbar’s for tea. The Seals took off in helicopters from nearby Sumeristan, flew to the compound without the approval of the Kabulistan government, and assassinated the terrorist along with several members of his immediate family.
Salman Al-Akbar had first become known to the public during the administration of William Hampton. Despite a number of bombing raids designed to eliminate him, Al-Akbar had consistently eluded his predators, and Hampton was ultimately blamed for using the raids to distract attent
ion from his own domestic scandals. To most Americans, the tall, gaunt, and bearded leader of Husam al Din was best known as the mastermind of the Mayday attacks.
On May 1, 2001, a hijacked 757 had crashed into the Mall of America. Members of Husam al Din had seized control of the airliner shortly after takeoff in Minneapolis. The plane was packed with fuel and headed for Los Angeles. They forced their way into the cockpit and slit the throats of the pilot and co-pilot with box cutters. The men then turned the plane around, headed south toward Bloomington, and smashed into the side of the Mall. The Mall of America, presumably chosen as a target for its symbolic significance, erupted into a fireball that could be seen for nearly twenty miles in all directions. The scene was chaotic. Fire trucks were dispatched from all over the state, but they were slow to respond due to the distance of rural communities from the Mall. Before the day was over, nearly 2,000 innocent shoppers had perished; many had been trampled to death.
Things got worse. Later that day, suicide bombers walked into carefully chosen targets around the country and blew themselves up. The venues included an elementary school in Virginia, a synagogue in New Jersey, a U.S. Post Office in New Mexico, and a high school football practice in Texas. By midnight, the death toll had reached 3,000.
The terrorists also hijacked a second airliner, which proved to be the only redeeming moment of the day. The second plane, United flight 546, took off from Boston’s Logan airport headed for Chicago. The Husam al Din agents who commandeered the second 757 placed it on a direct course for Washington. In an act of spontaneous heroism, the passengers of United 546 overcame the terrorists and took control of the aircraft, which crashed in a field south of Wilmington, killing all 103 people on board.
