Word: engelhards
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...ENGELHARD had his own self-serving arguments to explain his lack of criticism of the white minority regime. In 1966, Engelhard received a "brotherhood" award from a New Jersey religious council while hundreds outside the banquet hotel protested Engelhard's support for apartheid, chanting "Brotherhood can't be bought." Inside the hotel, Engelhard tried to justify his activities to the guests assembled to honor him: "You have certain obligations as a guest in the country in which you do business. One of these obligations consists of not criticizing what they do at home, since you don't want them...
...more self-serving argument has perhaps never been made by an American earning millions off the slave-wage labor of black South African gold miners. But upon closer examination, one finds it was not even simply a matter of "make your money and keep quiet" for Charlie Engelhard. More than any other American, Charles Engelhard gave direct political support to the Nationalist government. Engelhard sat on the boards of Witwatersrand Native Labor Association and Native Recruiting Agency, two South African government agencies which recruit cheap African labor to work in the mines...
...Engelhard also served as a leading officer of the South African Foundation, a South African government businessmen's public relations front on which no other American would agree to serve. This foundation was set up in the words of its leaders "because there is a systematic, well-organized, well-financed attack on South Africa, conducted on a world scale by a number of organizations supported by Afro-Asian and Communist interests." And while Engelhard was busy telling American detractors that U.S. corporate involvement could play a constructive role in helping bring South Africa's black majority toward full political participation...
...would be misleading, however, to paint a picture of a Charles Engelhard who only palled around with the South African officials whose policies made it possible to build his empire. Engelhard had friends in high political places in the U.S. as well. A generous contributor to the Democratic party, Engelhard was confidante to both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Often, Engelhard's cultivation of American politicos caused embarassment for the U.S. Johnson, especially, made a habit of sending Engelhard as a U.S. representative to African state ceremonies. In 1964, for instance, Engelhard asked the president to send him as U.S. representative...
BUDDING technocrats at the Kennedy School may find cause to admire the fiscal prudence with which Engelhard built his father's $20 million nest egg into a quarter-billion dollar empire. In his non-corporate life, however, Engelhard was not exactly the thrifty sort. His expenditures on life's luxuries make his philanthropic pittances pall by comparison. Before he died, Engelhard owned nine homes on four continents, including a hunting lodge in the Transvaal, and a mansion outside Johannesburg...