Word: ltv
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Clinton is not alone in highlighting concerns. Last week, the Investigations Subcommittee of the House Armed Service Committee held hearings on the proposed sale of the missiles and aircraft divisions of Texas's LTV Aerospace and Defense Company to a couple of companies controlled at least partially by the French government...
Should the French be allowed to buy LTV...
...Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency has determined that the sale of LTV's missile technology to the French firm poses major security problems. Thomson-CSF, aware that access to LTV's Stealth technology would never be approved, brought the Carlyle Group into the deal specifically to buy the aircraft operations. Still, critics object that Thomson-CSF is essentially buying U.S. secrets. Asks a Pentagon insider rhetorically: "Why else would Thomson buy a bankrupt LTV in a declining defense market except to get the technology...
...battle involves some powerful protagonists in the international defense industry. Championing the proposed deal is former U.S. Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, now Carlyle's vice chairman, who argues that the LTV missile operation is a natural complement to Thomson-CSF's heavy involvement in communications, radar and guidance systems. Carlucci claims that LTV will benefit from the strength of Thomson-CSF, and to prove his point he cites opposition to the sale by French missilemakers Aerospatiale and Matra. "The U.S. cannot escape the trend toward greater internationalization of the Western defense industry," he says...
...proposed sale exposes the vagueness of U.S. policy on selling sensitive defense firms to international competitors and the absence of guidelines to determine which U.S. firms are vital to national security. Augustine hopes to make the LTV sale a test case in clarifying the issues. "If we can't have a level playing field with foreign firms," he says, "the least we can hope is that somebody turns on the lights...