Word: fiats
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...most ways, business could not be better for Fiat and its charismatic chairman, Gianni Agnelli. The Italian conglomerate, which manufactures such high-tech equipment as robotics and telecommunications systems, as well as autos and other vehicles, has come roaring back from a string of losses in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Fiat's profits increased 113% last year, to a record $884 million on sales of $18 billion. But the company has been unable to escape an increasingly embarrassing problem: about 15% of its stock is owned by Libya, and two representatives from the land of Muammar Gaddafi...
Because of Libya's investment in Fiat, the Pentagon has decided not to award a proposed $7.9 million contract to the company under which it would have built 178 earthmovers for the U.S. Marine Corps. Reason: the Reagan Administration does not want any American money to flow--even indirectly--into the coffers of a government that sponsors international terrorism...
...Fiat became entangled with Libya in 1976. The company was short of cash, and Gaddafi, who was piling up petrodollars, was not then generally viewed as a bankroller of terrorists. Fiat welcomed Libya's investment of some $400 million. Recalls Agnelli: "We liked petrodollars. Everybody needed petrodollars...
Jorge is a law-abiding citizen of Santiago, an academic. He drives a Fiat, goes to the movies, shops at the overflowing markets, and lives in a nice part of town very near General Pinochet. At 2 or 3 a.m. most nights, he receives phone calls. The anonymous, "unofficial" callers say, "Your children are dead meat. We will cut off their arms and legs." And so on. About twice a year, Jorge attends the funeral of a friend who has disappeared in the middle of the night. Also unofficial...
There is also a personal component: when Fiat Chairman Giovanni Agnelli flies in from Italy, Kissinger has been known to call his wife Nancy and have an extra place set at their next dinner party. The president of one U.S.-based company says that "Kissinger offers not only a valuable geopolitical analysis of the world, but also provides valuable entree and contacts to government and business leaders around the world...