Word: pentagon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...correspondents from Boston to Los Angeles spoke with academic experts, arms manufacturers and dealers, but the main files came from Washington. There, Joseph Kane, who covers the Pentagon, and Jerry Hannifin, our expert in military and aerospace technology, collaborated to analyze the policies and hardware of the world's largest arms purveyor: the U.S. No stranger to weapons or military politics, Kane commanded a howitzer battery in the peacetime Army in Germany in the early 1950s. As Atlanta bureau chief he directed coverage of the William Galley court martial, last year reported for our cover story on Defense Secretary...
Although almost all arms in the West are manufactured by private companies, governments are deeply involved at nearly every step of the high-stakes operation. Pentagon and Commerce Department officials, for example, aid sales teams from U.S. arms manufacturers at the biennial Paris Air Show, where hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons business is transacted. Until recently, France's top arms salesman was Air Force General Hugues de 1'Estoile who, dressed in civilian clothes, trotted the globe seeking customers. Usually, however, it is the military attache, stationed in nearly every embassy around the world, who spots a potential...
According to the Pentagon, the case is considerably simpler: the Vinnell Corp. contract is merely the first example of a cost-cutting Pentagon policy change laid down in 1972. Ever since World War II, the U.S. has been using regular military personnel to train the forces of countries round the world. But with shrinking U.S. force levels and the advent of the volunteer army, U.S. soldiers have become too scarce and expensive to use for such purposes. Thus three years ago, the Pentagon decided that in the future, wherever possible, it would hire civilian contractors to train friendly foreign armies...
...also in 1972 that King Faisal's agents approached the U.S. asking for help in modernizing the national guard to augment Saudi Arabia's far better equipped regular army of 36,000. In March 1973, the Saudis and the Pentagon agreed to pursue a deal, and that month the State Department sent a memorandum of understanding to the Senate and House foreign affairs committees reporting the arrangement and advising Congress that civilian contractors would be used in part of the package...
...summer of 1973, a 19-man U.S. military team went to Saudi Arabia to survey exactly what would be needed. After both sides agreed on a deal in October, the Pentagon invited bids on the various components that it felt civilian firms could handle. The U.S. Government felt it could more efficiently manage some parts of the $335 million enterprise itself. Thus the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was given the $62 million job of building modern barracks for the Saudi guard. But the Cadillac Gage Co. was given a civilian contract to build armored cars for Faisal...