Word: contractor
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...against rig-ins began in 1979 with the chance remark of an Illinois paving contractor. He told a federal investigator looking into alleged bidding improprieties, "If you think it's bad here, you ought to see it in Tennessee." The Justice Department made haste to do exactly that, eventually prosecuting 44 cases in that state alone. Among those nailed: the brother and uncle of former Governor Ray Blanton. As guilty contractors began plea bargaining for lighter sentences and lower fines, they implicated other firms outside Tennessee, a process that quickly revealed an ever widening web of anticompetitive conspiracy...
...most embarrassment to the Army is the Pershing II missile, which is scheduled for deployment in West Germany four months from now but has failed in five of its 16 experimental firings. Every one of the misfires, Wickham charged, was the result of quality-control problems. Pershing's contractor is the Martin Marietta Corp., with headquarters in Bethesda, Md. Army officials familiar with the program explained that the most recent test, on July 27, was botched because of improperly placed shims, or washers, in the hot-thrust section of the missile. Glitches that have caused other failures include...
...process has cost "well over a million dollars so far." Yet a House-Senate conference committee refused to allow the Army to choose a second manufacturer. The apparent reason: members bowed to pressures from New England legislators to keep the jobs dependent on it with the current contractor, Avco Corp.'s Lycoming Division in Stratford, Conn...
...Pentagon agents tend to prefer "sole source" contracts with a major manufacturer, who will acquire the parts from subcontractors and take a profit as middleman. When bids on parts are sought, the Pentagon's buyers often deem the competition "adequate" even if the only "bidders" are the prime contractor and one of its subcontractors, whose business often depends upon remaining on good terms with the larger company. Furthermore, the report contends, Pentagon buyers are reluctant to permit new sources of parts from breaking into the circle of approved suppliers...
...maintains that even before this warning, top U.S. officials already knew the hazards of dioxin in Agent Orange from the Government's own research and that as a Government contractor, the company was simply filling an order. The federal court documents show that in 1967 the Joint Chiefs of Staff reviewed a Rand Corp. warning about the herbicide but discounted it and continued the spraying, believed by the military to be essential to the war effort, for an additional 2½ years. Yet the Pentagon is on record as having ordered Agent Orange from Dow and others specifically...