by Sally Denton
“There may be a change” . . . “Yes, but I have to wait” . . . “George, you have thirty-six hours”: Miller Center.
“It’s not a good idea”: George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1993), 3.
“I was shocked”: Newsweek, July 12, 1982, quoted in McCartney, Friends in High Places, 222.
“Bill, I want you to tell President Reagan” . . . “My experience was”: William P. Clark, quoted in Miller Center.
“sniping or guerrilla warfare”: Nixon, quoted in McCartney, Friends in High Places, 222.
“Reagan seems to have had” . . . “As it turned out”: Cannon, President Reagan, 352.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE REAGANAUTS
“There are too many people from Bechtel in this administration”: Washington Post, December 14, 1982.
“providing artful”: Greider, “Boys from Bechtel.”
“a company with a long history”: Wiley and Gottlieb, Empires in the Sun, 308.
“I . . . took some jabs” . . . “A hot issue”: Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 19.
“If I have any differences”: Shultz, quoted in Hayes, “Bechtel: A Reclusive Giant.”
“We did not go around twisting arms”: Shultz in “Nomination of George P. Shultz,” 51.
“ ‘the entire gamut’ ” . . . “curb the spread” . . . “weakened our diplomatic efforts”: “Nomination of George P. Shultz,” 55–56.
“Cranston took me on” . . . “stand up”: Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 19.
“smear against Bechtel” . . . “Well, now, wait a minute” . . . “ever . . . undercut”: “Nomination of George P. Shultz,” 56.
“pervasive”: Metzenbaum, quoted in Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 19, 1982.
“very, very serious matter”: Boykin, Cursed Is the Peacemaker, 179.
“actively lobbies”: New York Times, July 26, 1982.
“an employee or consultant” . . . “beware”: “Bechtel Responds to Inaccuracies in Media Coverage of the USAID Iraq Infrastructure Reconstruction Program Award,” April 29, 2003, www.bechtel.com/2003-04-29.html. The International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 99, also identifies Casey as a Bechtel consultant.
“Bechtel is controlling”: Candidate George Sheldon, quoted in Boykin, Cursed Is the Peacemaker, 180.
“gave the stink little thought” . . . “understanding with George” . . . “about the facts of life”: Ibid.
“implication of any conflict”: New York Times, July 26, 1982.
“having Lebanese blood”: Boykin, Cursed Is the Peacemaker, 180.
“The essential point”: Greider, “Boys from Bechtel.”
“insinuations about” . . . “rising tide”: www.bechtel.com/BAC-Chapter-6.html.
“the most hawkish”: Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2010), 38.
“The antinuclear propaganda”: Teller, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, June 16, 1979. See McCartney, Friends in High Places, 225.
“became obsessed with proving”: Bechtel executive, quoted in McCartney, 224.
“as more than a propaganda” . . . “What its slick”: Howard Kurtz, “Hiding a Lobby Behind a Name: Why Not Truth in Labeling for Interest Groups?” Washington Post, January 27, 1985.
“pride and joy”: Michael J. Graetz, The End of Energy: The Unmaking of America’s Environment, Security, and Independence (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2011), 148.
“If the Reagan administration”: Brownstein and Easton, Reagan’s Ruling Class, 144.
“the story goes”: Fehner, 1.
“few megaprojects”: www.bechtel.com/BAC-Chapter-6.html.
“For one thing”: Nies, Unreal City, 200.
“We have to approach” . . . “bailout teams”: www.bechtel.com/BAC-Chapter-6.html.
“Winning FUSRAP” . . . “It gave us”: www.bechtel.com/2007-07-13.html.
CHAPTER NINETEEN: A WORLD AWASH IN PLUTONIUM
“sufficiently alarmed” . . . “Bechtel Cabinet” . . . “their private interests”: Greider, “Boys from Bechtel.”
“Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse” . . . “as a threat to the world”: The Four Horsemen are former secretary of state George Shultz; former US senator Sam Nunn; former secretary of state Henry Kissinger; and former secretary of defense William Perry, as part of the Nuclear Security Project created in 2007, www.nuclearsecurityproject.org.
“a legitimate need”: Greider, “Boys from Bechtel.”
“the Antichrist”: Amory Lovins, quoted in Brownstein and Easton, Reagan’s Ruling Class, 153.
“open secret”: McCartney, Friends in High Places, 226.
“When the average person” . . . “Shaped the way”: Fehner, 1.
“was a separate state”: Marks, quoted in Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 231.
“Bechtel was the poster child”: Interview, David Hill, August 13, 2013.
“a market Bechtel had”: McCartney, Friends in High Places, 228.
“Employing former government officials”: Bechtel, 161–62.
“It’s more effective”: McCartney, 156.
CHAPTER TWENTY: IT WOULD BE A TERRIBLE MESS
“size of the Soviet buildup”: Weinberger, quoted in Brownstein and Easton, Reagan’s Ruling Class, 434. For discussion of the US miscalculations regarding the Soviet buildup, see Ronald Powaski’s March to Armageddon and James Lebovic’s Flawed Logics.
“To paraphrase Will Rogers”: Congressman Les Aspin, quoted in ibid., 451.
“The government has a long history” . . . “government-subsidized”: Dan Briody, The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2003), 42.
“Our long-term goal”: Weinberger, quoted in Brownstein and Easton, Reagan’s Ruling Class, 451.
“from virtually every domestic”: Ibid., 450.
“is really running things”: Meese, quoted in ibid., 645.
“swamp”: David Stockman, quoted in ibid., 453.
“Reagan and Weinberger”: Norris, quoted in ibid., 455.
“The only purposes” . . . “It is difficult to see”: Smith, quoted in ibid., 455.
“Cold War cabal”: Robert Scheer, With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War (New York: Random House, 1982), 5.
“threat inflators” . . . “dourly predict”: Ibid., 38.
“My idea of American policy”: Reagan, quoted in Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown (New York: Sentinel, 2011), 12. For details about Reagan’s anti-nuclear proliferation stance, see Paul Lettow, Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
“I have read the book of Revelation”: Weinberger, quoted in Scheer, With Enough Shovels, 2.
“rightist suspicions”: Ibid., 41.
“It would be a terrible mess”: Louis Onorato Giuffrida, quoted in ibid., 3.
“This would kill”: Oreskes and Conway, Merchants of Doubt, 49.
“the boys from Bechtel” . . . “As long as policy making” . . . “commercialism” . . . “economic greed”: Churba, quoted in Jewish Telegraphic Agency, January 19, 1983.
“the administration is suffering”: George Arzt, “Cap Calls Saudi Story ‘Fabrication,’ ” New York Post, August 19, 1983.
“I would like to confirm” . . . “tryout” . . . “model is not” . . . “appalled” . . . “access to information”: George Arzt, “Koch Blasts Caspar,” New York Post, August 18, 1983.
“hostility to the State” . . . “a secret supergovernment” . . . “fabrication” . . . “not to reveal details”: “The Koch-Weinberger Letters: An Exchange of Rejoinders on the Mideast,” New York Times, November 9, 1983.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: ULTIMATE INSIDERS
“young pup” . . . “feet” . . . “cluster of geniuses”: Rumsfeld, quoted in Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York: Picador, 2007
), 65. See also Klein, 611, n. 5.
“preference for uniformed”: Morris, “Undertaker’s Tally” (Part 1).
“After the Iranian”: St. Clair, “Bechtel, More Powerful Than the U.S. Army,” 7.
“unpaid government employee” . . . “simply wanted to be helpful”: Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, 13.
“almost daily use”: Julian Borger, “Rumsfeld ‘Offered to Help Saddam’: Declassified Papers Leave the White House Hawk Exposed over His Role During the Iran-Iraq War,” Guardian (Manchester, UK), December 31, 2002.
“We believed the Iraqis”: Rick Francona, quoted in ibid.
A United Nations team provided the first outside confirmation that Iraq used chemical weapons in a March 26, 1984, report, “which was released the same day that Rumsfeld met with Aziz to repitch the pipeline plan,” according to Jim Vallette, with Steve Kretzmann and Daphne Wysham, Crude Vision: How Oil Interests Obscured U.S. Government Focus on Chemical Weapons Use by Saddam Hussein, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Institute for Policy Studies, August 13, 2003), 11.
“whatever was necessary and legal”: Borger, “Rumsfeld ‘Offered to Help Saddam.’ ”
“Acting as a special White House”: David Lindorff, “Secret Bechtel Documents Reveal: Yes, It Is About Oil,” Counterpunch, April 9, 2003.
The State Department memoranda were declassified in February 2003 by the National Archives and published by IPS, Washington Post, and other journalism and public outlets.
“I said I could understand”: Rumsfeld declassified memo, quoted in Bob Herbert, “Ultimate Insiders,” New York Times, April 14, 2003.
“the revolving door” . . . “shaped and implemented” . . . “bent many rules”: Vallette with Kretzmann and Wysham, Crude Vision, 2.
“sordid tale” . . . “focused on getting a pipeline” . . . “Hussein’s troops”: Vallette, quoted on Smiley.
“a bagman for Bechtel”: Vallette, quoted in Lindorff, “Secret Bechtel Documents Reveal.”
“ruthless little bastard”: Nixon, quoted in Klein, Shock Doctrine, 357.
“As Saddam was gassing the Kurds”: “Rumsfeld’s Dealings with Saddam: Were Trips to Iraq Meant to Secure Pipeline Deal?” Village Voice, April 1, 2003.
According to Vallette, when United Nations weapons inspectors arrived in Iraq in 1991, they declared the industrial complex PC-2 was a major part of the “smoking gun” that proved Iraq was pursuing a Weapons of Mass Destruction program. Vallette with Kretzmann and Wysham, Crude Vision, 7.
“went on to talk glowingly”: Barry M. Lando, Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush (New York: Other Press, 2007), 69.
“He was there to beg”: St. Clair, “Bechtel, More Powerful Than the U.S. Army.”
“at State’s invitation”: Vallette with Kretzmann and Wysham, Crude Vision, 13.
“Out of public view” . . . “composed Donald Rumsfeld’s pipeline pitch”: Ibid., 3.
“were withheld from me at the time”: Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 238n.
“The problem now is for Iraq” . . . “support and sanctuary”: “Briefing Notes for Rumsfeld Visit to Baghdad,” Cable from Secretary of State George Shultz to American Embassy in Sudan, Secret, March 27, 1984, declassified November 14, 1996, w2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq48.pdf.
In a memorandum dated May 3, 1985, Bechtel executive Eugene Moriarty explained to a Jordanian official: “Although Mr. Shultz has isolated himself from the pipeline project because of Bechtel’s involvement, if HRH [King Hussein] or any of his staff initiate a discussion about Jordan’s petroleum development and the related pipeline project, Mr. Shultz may not react directly, but his staff will be aware of the situation and will be in a position to do so on his behalf.” 17.
For his part, Rumsfeld would write in his memoir that he discussed with Saddam “a proposal to funnel Iraqi oil” through the Aqaba pipeline “at the State Department’s request.” Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, 6–7.
Another news account contradicts Shultz’s claims that he had recused himself from all Bechtel-related matters. According to Jeffrey St. Clair, Shultz “closely reviewed a top secret State Department cable which spelled out Saddam’s fears regarding Israeli sabotage and speculated about ways in which they might be addressed by the Reagan administration. In response to Rumsfeld’s interest in seeing Iraq increase oil exports, including through a possible new pipeline across Jordan to Aqaba, Saddam suggested Israeli threat to security of such a line was major concern and US might be able to provide some assurances in this regard.’ ” St. Clair, “Bechtel, More Powerful Than the U.S. Army,” 8.
“Contrary to mistaken critics”: www.bechtel.com. April 29, 2003. Jonathan Marshall, Bechtel’s then media relations director, maintained that Shultz’s name appeared on the State Department cables as a matter of “formality” because “all outgoing State Department memos carry the name of the top ranking department officer in Washington.” Vallette, Kretzmann, and Wysham, Crude Vision, 16.
For the role of George H. W. Bush in lobbying for the pipeline, see Mark Hosenball, “The Odd Couple,” New Republic, June 1, 1992.
“Stocked as it was”: St. Clair, “Bechtel, More Powerful Than the U.S. Army,” 8.
“an insurance company”: Allard.
“Bechtel, U.S. government officials”: Vallette, Kretzmann, and Wysham, Crude Vision, 14.
“I cannot emphasize enough”: Bechtel executive H. B. Scott, quoted in Lindorff, “Secret Bechtel Documents Reveal.”
“the ways in which oil interests”: Vallette, Kretzmann, and Wysham, Crude Vision, 9.
“worked hand-in-glove”: Ibid., 12.
“company was virtually an unofficial expediter”: Friedman, Spider’s Web, 29.
“Whatever misgivings we had”: Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, 4.
“prepare a plan of action”: “Pipeline Project” (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1988); “Measures to Improve U.S. Posture and Readiness to Respond to Developments in the Iran-Iraq War,” Top Secret National Security Decision Directive 139, April 5, 1984, declassified August 18, 1994, www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq53.pdf.
“I hope they kill each other”: Kissinger, quoted in Lando, Web of Deceit, 48.
“My meeting with Saddam”: Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, 6.
“no mention”: Borger, “Rumsfeld ‘Offered to Help Saddam.’ ”
“No one seemed concerned”: Herbert, “Ultimate Insiders.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: A WITCH’S BREW
“Jews were overly sensitive”: Pollard, “First Memorandum In Aid of Sentencing,” 15. Declassified November 13, 2014, http://www.archives.gov/declassification/iscap/pdf/2013-084-doc2.pdf.
When exactly Pollard began spying for Israel remains a matter of dispute. Pollard told the US Justice Department that he began spying in July 1984 and that he offered his services rather than having been recruited. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported that Pollard “offered to supply Israel with intelligence as early as 1980, but was not recruited as an operative until the fall of 1981, three years earlier than he and the Israeli government have admitted.” Seymour Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991), 285. The CIA Damage Assessment of the Pollard case states that his spying began in June 1984. The Jonathan Jay Pollard Espionage Case: A Damage Assessment. Authors Loftus and Aarons, who have written extensively about Pollard, claim that he was recruited in 1984 by “a group of right-wing Israeli politicians.” Loftus and Aarons, Secret War, 473.
“To Pollard, that comment”: Shaw, Miscarriage of Justice, 1. Jonathan Marshall, a classmate of Pollard’s at Stanford who, ironically, would go on to become Media Relations Manager for Bechtel, described Pollard to the New York Times as “a committed Zionist, but fairly liberal” on Middle East politics. Marshall, quoted in Wolf Blitzer, Territory of Lies: The Exclusive Story of Jonathan Jay Pollard: The American Who Spied on His Coun
try for Israel and How He Was Betrayed (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 36.
“The US Navy”: “Defendant Jonathan J. Pollard’s First Memorandum,” 14.
“short but intensive” . . . “technological Pearl Harbor”: The Jonathan Jay Pollard Espionage Case, v–viii.
“the details of Iraq’s”: Blitzer, Territory of Lies, 166.
“Amalek Complex”: Pollard, quoted in Bernard R. Henderson, Pollard: The Spy’s Story (New York: Alpha Books, 1988), 196.
“the focus of American strategic concern”: Blitzer, Territory of Lies, 208.
“a witch’s brew”: William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1995). See also United States Export Policy.
“It wasn’t just a tilt”: Ted Koppel, “How U.S. Arms and Technology Were Transferred to Iraq,” Nightline, ABC News, September 13, 1991.
“higher-than-secret”: Bernard R. Henderson, Pollard: The Spy’s Story (New York: Alpha Books, 1988), 11, ff.
“was to be the pride”: Friedman, Spider’s Web, 117.
“We were hired”: Tom Flynn, a senior vice president at Bechtel, quoted by Alan Friedman, “Warning Forced Bechtel out of Iraq Chemical Project,” Financial Times, February 21, 1991.
“fuel air explosive bombs”: United States Export Policy, 71.
“direct encouragement”: Flynn, quoted by Friedman, “Warning Forced Bechtel.”
“I watched the threats”: “Defendant Jonathan J. Pollard’s First Memorandum,” 16.
“As Diaspora Jews”: Bernard Henderson, 42.
“My parents never ceased” . . . “The first flag”: The Jonathan Jay Pollard Espionage Case (Personal History).
“he had begun dreaming”: Ibid., iv.
“had traveled with his father”: Bernard Henderson, 11 ff.
“growing determination” . . . “managed to gain the respect” . . . “temperamental genius” . . . “outstanding”: Jonathan Jay Pollard Espionage Case.
