Word: bechtel
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...list of elite political insiders who have been on the Bechtel payroll is sizable. John McCone, who headed the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1950s, and the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1960s, was a Bechtel man. So was George Schultz, the former secretary of state. And so, too, was Caspar W. Weinberger '38, the former secretary of defense who now publishes Forbes Magazine...
...Bechtel story is a significant one. It has larger implications for our political process as a whole, in terms of understanding the relationship between the public and the private domains and personal accountability in our system of government. Consider Bechtel's history...
After amassing considerable wealth during the 1920s by building pipelines for privately held oil and gas companies, Bechtel was hired by the government to build the Hoover Dam, in Boulder, Col. From the beginning, the company's business practices were suspect...
...journalist Laton McCartney relates in his 1988 book, Friends in High Places: The Bechtel Story, Bechtel workers were overworked, illegally paid in script, and compelled to live in dangerous, unsanitary conditions. Meanwhile, Bechtel played the corporate interest game, hiring powerful Jobbyists who successfully derailed the efforts of then-Interior Secretary Harold Ickes to initiate an investigation of the firm...
...World War II era saw the further entrenchment of Bechtel's financial and political clout. The federal government turned to Bechtel to construct warships for both the British and American fleets. And after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Secretary of War Henry Stimson literally ordered Bechtel to build the Alaska Oil Highway...