= TARNISHED WINGS =

__ o __

Graft and Greed at Lockheed Martin


 

Sightings from The Catbird Seat

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March 29, 2005

Pentagon Strips Air Force of
21 Major Weapons Programs

Las Vegas Review-Journal

WASHINGTON (AP) – In a highly unusual move, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer on Monday took away the Air Force’s authority to oversee 21 major programs with a combine value of $200 billion.

The move, called temporary, was made because of a civilian leadership vacuum at the Air Force after the departure last week of Peter Teets, who was under secretary of the Air Force as well as acting secretary. Teets had been fillin in since James Roche resigned as secretary in January.

It also comes amid continuing controversy over the Air Force’s handling of a multibillion-dollar Boeing aircraft lease deal that fell through last year and led to the conviction of former Air Force executive Darleen Druyun on charges of conspiring to violate conflict-of-interest rules.

Druyun admitted in court that she favored Boeing on deals worth billion of dollars because the company gave jobs to her daughter and son-in-law. Her admission led to a detailed Pentagon review of her nearly 10-year tenure as a key weapons buyer for the Air Force and prompted rival defense companies to file protests over Boeing contracts awarded during that period.

The episode has taken a tool on the Air Force. Since Roche departed, the White House has not nominated anyone to replace him as the Air Force secretary, a post that requires Senate confirmation. Some believe the current Navy secretary, Gordon England, will get the nomination.

In addition, no one has been nominated to replace Teets as the under secretary. What’s more, the post of Air Force acquisition chief has been vacant since Marvin Sambur left in January.

With Teets gone, the most senior civilian in the Air Force is Michael I. Dominquez, who has served since August 2001 as assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs….

In Monday’s announcement, the Pentagon said it was giving the decision-making authority for the 21 major Air Force weapons programs to Michael Wynne, the No. 2 Pentagon civilian in charge of weapons procurement.

The No. 1 slot has not had a Senate-confirmed holder since May 2003. Wynne was nominate for the top spot but his nomination – and others in the Air Force – have been blocked by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, as part of a long-running dispute over the Boeing lease deal….

The 21 programs include a $59.2 billion Boeing contract for C-17A Globemaster II advanced cargo aircraft, and a $31.7 billion Boeing and Lockheed Martin contract for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle….

Among other programs affected are air-to-air missiles, B-2 bomber radar modernization, C-5 cargo plane improvements, propulsion replacement for the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile and a $18 billion communications satellite program….

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January 28, 2005

Lockheed Team Wins Presidential Chopper

By Andrea Shalai-Esa, MSN Money

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Navy on Friday gave a transatlantic team led by Lockheed Martin Corp. a $1.7 billion contract to build a new fleet of 23 U.S. presidential helicopters, a deal valued at up to $6.1 billion.

The decision was a stunning setback for Connecticut-based United Technologies Corp.’s (UTX) Sikorsky Aircraft unit – which for nearly 50 years has built and maintained the green and white “Marine One” helicopters that fly the president.

Sikorsky had wrapped itself in the American flag to pitch its twin-engined VH-92, based on the Black Hawk helicopter.

But lower cost, a larger cabin and faster delivery schedule allowed No. 1 Pentagon supplier Lockheed to prevail with its US101, based on the three-engined EH101 made by AgustaWestland Inc., a unit of Italy’s Finmeccanica SpA.

The deal attracted international attention, with Prime Ministers Tony Blair of Britain and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy personally pressing President Bush on behalf of Lockheed’s British-Italian design….

Texas-based Textron Inc.’s Bell Helicopter is the other big partner and Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp. will provide electronics for the new chopper.

Lockheed Vice President Stephen Ramsey said 65 percent of the US101 would be built in the United States, with the remaining 35 percent to be split between Britain and Italy….

[Assistant Navy Secretary John] Young downplayed any impact on the U.S. industrial base, saying both companies enter good bids and met “Buy America” provisions for U.S. content.

Sikorsky President Stephen Finger said the company was disappointed about the decision and insisted its VH-92 flew farther, faster and carried more than the EH-101….

Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, said the decision was “outrageously wrong” because Sikorsky had vowed to build a helicopter that was “100 pct made in America.”

“I am committed to do everything in my power to right this wrong,” Lieberman said in a statement, saying he hoped Sikorsky would challenge the contract award with federal officials….

The cost of the new helicopter will begin at $75 million a copy, gradually rising to about $110 million, Young said….

Analysts said the win could give Lockheed and its partners a competitive edge when the Air Force buys 194 new search and rescue helicopters next year, although Young downplayed that, saying the requirements were very different.

In addition, it could help Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed sell another 200 helicopters to the U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security in future competitions….

< < < FLASHBACK < < <

(How soon we forget…)

July 24, 2004

$2.6 billion bought Air Force
planes not up to standards

By R. Jeffrey Smith, The Washington Post

WASHINGTON – The Air Force spent $2.6 billion to acquire 50 transport planes that don’t meet military requirements, preventing squadrons based in six states from being fully prepared for their missions in the Middle East and elsewhere, the Defense Department Inspector General’s office disclosed yesterday.

After conducting a lengthy investigation set off by a whistle-blower’s phone call, the Inspector General’s office said the Air Force used an inappropriate procedure to buy the C-130J transport plane from Lockheed Martin and then mismanaged its production. It also said senior Defense Department weapons acquisition officials failed to “provide effective oversight” of the program….

Military officials said yesterday that the C-130J planes have not passed key readiness tests, and so none have been used as planned by the U.S. Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard, or Marine Corps in combat zones or military assaults….

Congress has approved spending $4 billion for the planes, and the entire program likely will cost more than $7.5 billion….

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Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003

To: “The Catbird”

From: “The Lone Engineer”

Subject: Lockheed Martin should be debarred ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Okay, here it is:

I began working for Schlockheed-Murder in 1999, as an EMI/EMC test engineer. I also had duties performing vibration, shock, temperature and altitude tests on DoD electronics, inclusive of many variants of a line called the Q-70 (see them on their web site, by the way) and as well as tests on a number of airborne systems for the P-3C BMUP (block modification upgrade program) as well as some work on EA-6B upgrades, and F-16 ‘new’ variants being sold strictly to the UAE and ISRAEL, not to our own forces, by the way, which is paradoxical as the new variants are vastly superior in capability to what our own services have with the F-16’s they fly.

As early as 2001, I had a ‘gag order’ issued to me by a project lead engineer during an EMI test on P-3C BMUP mission computer, at which time, this engineer ordered me “do not talk to government witnesses about deficiencies” and, at which time, I informed him about the ‘illegality’ of that, as well as went up my chain of command at Schlockheed-Murder to tell them that there “never can be a day when anyone in this building issues me an order never to tell the U.S. Government inspection personnel about deficiencies they have a right to know about” in a meeting with the Engineering Manager.

At the time I was still a contract to permanent hire person, and I informed the contract house that I was working for that either I would be dismissed at the end of my contract period for refusing to go along with gag orders about deficiencies, or that I would possibly be terminated early. The contract house representative, much to his credit, said; “you did the right thing, stay the course..” and told me that they (the contract house) would stand by me on this one.

Ironically, though this attitude of mine not to cooperate with the ‘lying by omission’ thing they wanted me to embark upon, tended to piss off my manager, a so-called ‘christian’ that I worked for, he was so angered by this that he made me remain a contractor for an additional six months before I was ultimately hired, much to my surprise.

Not too very long after this, I stayed clear of the project lead who had given me the illegal gag order, though it was clear nothing much happened to him, although at the time I discussed the matter with management, I had asked that he be present (I had an ear-witness in the room, unbeknownst to him, who’d heard everything he said to me, and I was going to have him present, as well) but the engineering manager, shaken by my disclosure to him that I had already been asked to testify before a U.S. Senate Subcommittee (J.D. Dingell’s Senate Subcommittee) about another failed weapons platform, the UH-60A Blackhawk Helicopter, which had a severe EMI / EMC problem that caused it to go out of control and crash on a regular basis.

Management kept me at arm’s length, but as I was a performer and did my job, I did actually get promoted and receive a nice pay raise (blood money or ‘hush money’ I suspect) and not much further happened to me. Then, regarding a ‘safety of flight’ issue that emerged on an airborne system that had already been deployed on as many as ’40’ aircraft that the Navy was operating, the company began to really lean on my ass over all sorts of things, began to audit my time card, and proceeded down the road to toss me out of the building.

It was ‘ironic’ that at the same time, I was being adversely impacted by visible colonies of the toxin producing mold, CLADOSPORIUM that was growing on the shield room anechoic cones in the sub-basement laboratory I performed my work in, and as I had requested they remove the mold that was impacting my health and ruining my lungs, making me very ill, they declined, and furthermore, forced me to keep working in that environment until they wrongfully terminated me in March of this year for alleged ‘insubordination’ which by their accusation, was for not sitting in meetings at which they repeatedly verbally assaulted me and threatened me.

I went to the Government Accounting Office, Office of Special Investigations after discussing the matter with a U.S. Government DCMA employee at length, at which time, as we were close to going to war in Iraq, he compelled me to do everything I could to fast track this and get the aircrews that flew these ‘ticking time bombs’ aware of the extreme hazard they were in with that Schlockheed-Murder system on board their plane.

The GAO Special Agent who contacted me at home assured me that the Navair community would be IMMEDIATELY told of the deficiency. The nature of that is more or less sensitive information and therefore I won’t disclose it…however, I immediately told the Schlockheed-Murder ethics office in Gaithersburg, Maryland about my reporting the problem to the GAO, and this woman, who I won’t identify, informed me that it was strictly my job to assist them in covering their asses, and if I did not, I could be terminated for that. I told her that it didn’t matter, lives were at stake, and that the company’s apparent concern wasn’t for human life, but for covering it’s asses, collectively.

On a different note, O.S.H.A. found, as I had asked for them to intervene and inspect, that not only was I breathing 98 percent pure CLADOSPORIUM mold in that shield room or anechoic room, but as I wore a monitoring pump, they provided during their investigation, that myself and others actually were breathing asbestos fibres from the fireproofing slurry material on the roof of the sub basement as well as from pipe jacketing. They fined the company but they are appealing the fine.

The state also sided with them and decided not to pay me unemployment benefits, as they also concluded that my having refused to be screamed at and yelled at in meetings constituted ‘insubordination’ by doing that.

At this time I have a state Congressman looking into the matter, but I do not expect much government help, although O.S.H.A. is launching an investigation into the ‘wrongful firing’ that ensued when Schlockheed-Murder found out that they were being investigated both by G.A.O. as well as O.S.H.A. because an employee they were injuring didn’t like that.

Most co-workers there knew of years of this pattern of ‘lying to the government’ or intentionally ‘covering up’ deficiencies of systems built in this plant, but were so very close to retiring that not many of them wished to rock the boat. One airborne system’s manager, after I told him about reporting the company to G.A.O. over the problems on the E-2C aircraft (40 or so of them) that he said; “well, you know that you’re out of here….probably before the week is over with..” and he was right, I lasted till Monday, and it was Thursday I spoke to him.

So, that’s my story about Schlockheed-Murder. Deficient hardware, an entire culture of people intimidated and harassed by management and afraid to report, and U.S. Government personnel really not watching hard enough or doing enough about this in this building, even though the company had a clear pattern of doing this that had them, by law, install an Ethics Hotline.

Oh yes, you get that same bimbo I spoke to that told me, on that Ethics Hotline, that my first priority was to protect the company.

I have over 30 years experience in Weapons Systems qualification programs, and this is the worst case of ‘fraud’ I have seen, ever!

You can give me a fictitious name as you print this on your web page, and yes, you can use their correct name, though I believe in my soul they are indeed Schlockheed-Murderers.


 

Program Manager Interviews

November, December, 1995

JOSHUA GOTBAUM

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR ECONOMIC SECURITY

~ ~ ~

Which Defense Firms Will Survive – Meet the
Man Who Helps the Pentagon Decide

A large white banner is first thing you notice upon entering the reception area of Joshua Gotbaum’s third-floor Pentagon office. In foot-high red letters, it reads: “Please Mr. Gotbaum, Save Natick [Mass.] Labs” (referring to the Base Realignment and Closure [BRAC] recommendation to close Natick),

Secretary Gotbaum, a former Wall Street investment banker, achieved the status of Washington insider in 1 short year. He is respected both by the Pentagon brass and defense industry officials. He influences key decisions ranging from BRAC to which defense industries will survive.

Secretary Gotbaum is the right man for the job at the right time. A 44-year-old lawyer, Secretary Gotbaum is at home in the world of mergers, acquisitions, and restructurings. He heads the new 260-person Pentagon Office of Economic Security and has won the confidence of many defense industry and military officials for helping educate the Pentagon brass on their decisions which impact the nation’s troubled defense industry. And so far, both sides appear pleased with his efforts or their behalf….

www.dau.mil/pubs/pm/pmpdf95/gotbaum.pdf

~ ~ ~

For more recent poop on Joshua Gotbaum, GO TO > > > The Eagle Hooded: The 9-11 Coverup; Hawaiian Airlines: Flying with the Bankruptcy Buzzards; Office of the U.S. Trustee vs. Harmon


 

Date: July 4, 2004

To:               thecatbird@the-catbird-seat.net

Subject:      Investigation of Lockheed Martin re: James Finkelstein for U.S. Senate in Georgia

Dear “Catbird”

I would very much appreciate it if you would respond to let me know if you have any further information by from or about the “Lone Engineer” report about Lockheed that you posted- specifically whether this is real or bogus, and whether any investigation has been launched by any official U.S. government agency or Congressional committee.

I am a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Georgia for Zell Miller’s soon to be vacated seat. The Senate primary is July 20, 2004, and there are two upcoming televised debates. Lockheed Martin has contributed thousands of dollars to two candidates in this race, both Representatives in Congress, and I have raised the issue of conflicts of interest in their taking this contributions from defense contractors. Obviously, any information you have may be of help.

Also, I have a brief message about my campaign which will give you some insight on who I am and why I am running in this race. If you think my campaign has merit, please pass it along or post it, as you will. Thank you!

Jim Finkelstein

Message to cut and paste:

WHY JAMES (Jim) FINKELSTEIN DECIDED TO RUN FOR THE JULY 20TH GEORGIA DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY FOR THE UNITED STATES SENATE

In March of 2003, when this country sent over a hundred thousand Marines and soldiers based in Kuwait to war in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of parents, spouses, and children back home had to endure indescribable emotions for weeks on end, waiting to hear any word from their loved ones- and dreading a knock on the door. I was one of those parents. When the combat phase of the war ended and I finally heard from my son Ben, a Sergeant in the Marine Corps, and found out he was safe, I can’t tell you how grateful I felt. Last August Ben and the members of his unit came home, and if you want to see how he looked at his homecoming at LeJeune, go to www.finkelstein4senate.org.

But over 5,000 wounded American soldiers and Marines didn’t come home safe, and over 800 more were flown back in flag draped coffins. I decided when my son came home last summer that if this war was still going on, if American lives were still being lost, that I would take a stand- not as a politician, but as a parent. I have no overwhelming desire to be a politician- my life is fulfilled. But I do have an obligation- a duty- to those who didn’t return in one piece, to the soldiers and Marines who are there now or who will be sent there soon, and to their parents, spouses, children, and other loved ones. That duty is to be a voice for them. At the very least, I will be a choice for Georgia voters on July 20th, for those who want to wrap up our mission in Iraq within the next six months and bring the troops home safe. We can accomplish this while leaving the Iraqis the means to retain their newly found freedom under the rule of law. To see how I propose doing this, go to www.finkelstein4senate.org

I also believe that at this moment in time, it is important to the United States of America and to the State of Georgia to have a person running for a national office who recognizes that the phrase “support our troops” means more than lip service. For that reason, I have discussed at debates and candidate forums the equipment, materials, and provisions for the families left behind that the troops in the field have been lacking. I have not hesitated to publicly embarrass three sitting members of the House of Representatives who are running for this Senate seat by revealing that they voted to provide billions of dollars to the defense contractors who funded their campaigns while sending our troops to war in canvas covered humvees that can’t stop a rock, let alone a bullet or RPG, vests without the ceramic inserts that make the body armor work, the wrong boots for desert warfare, inadequate eye protection from the desert sand and wind, the wrong rifles for urban combat (M-16’s instead of M-4’s), and poor or nonexistent communications equipment for individual soldiers and Marines. In addition, they failed to provide for the families of reservists and national guardsmen who were left without medical insurance or other essential benefits.

I am not a “one note” or “one issue” candidate. If you click on “MY PLATFORM” at the website, you will see some proposals that I think would make this a better country and a better state. These include my “litmus test” for approving federal judges and Supreme Court justices, which is a profound respect for the Constitution of the United States, and, most importantly an understanding and appreciation for the Bill of Rights and the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. These also include proposals to provide catastrophic health insurance for American families, to use corporate profits from outsourcing jobs to educate, retrain, and if necessary employ laid off workers, and to provide a system that will eliminate all medical malpractice insurance premiums for doctors while fairly compensating injured patients without regard to fault.

If you want to read the Coastal Courier’s June 18, 2004, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s June 25, 2004, feature articles on this campaign, click on:

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=12004357&BRD=1389&PAG=461&dept_id=161952&rfi=6

http://www.ajc.com/today/content/epaper/editions/today/metro_04bdbbef749ba074009f.html

For those who want to see and hear the U.S. Senate candidates, there will be two televised debates: July 11, 2004 at 4:00 P.M. on WSB TV 2 in Atlanta and July 18, 2004, 7:00 P.M. on GPTV. I hope that my presence in this campaign will mean that the debate will focus on issues of importance to this nation and to the State of Georgia.

JAMES N. FINKELSTEIN

Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate

“BRING THE TROOPS HOME SAFE”

_______________________________________________________

Campaign Headquarters: 606 Baldwin Drive ~ Albany, Georgia 31707

PHONE: (229) 436-7824; Toll Free: (888) 436-8445; Home: (229) 435-0533; Cell: (229) 894-0376; Fax: (229) 436-5657
e-mail:
finkelstein4ga@bellsouth.net; www.finkelstein4senate.org

* * *

March 24, 2003

Crowds “shock and awe” Lockheed Martin with their protests

By Brandywine Peace Community

At noon today, a large crowd gathered at the Lockheed Martin Facility behind King of Prussia Mall to protest its role in producing the munitions that are currently devastating Iraq.

“Every weapon produced by Lockheed Martin means billions of dollars transferred from the public treasury to private wealth, from public need to corporate greed. Moreover, every weapon produced by Lockheed Martin means another bombing run, another cruise missile attach, another war.” (from the Brandywine Peace Community’s Martin Luther King Day litany at Lockheed Martin, January 21, 2002)

For fifteen years

The Brandywine Peace Community is a faith based peace activist group formed in 1977 by people experienced in the nonviolent resistance to the war in Vietnam. After more than two decades, Brandywine continues to organize campaigns of nonviolent direct action to war and to challenge the weapons industry in the Delaware Valley. That challenge of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience was first demonstrated at General Electric weapons facilities in the Delaware Valley in campaign of resistance and public education that lasted for more than 15 years.

In 1993, General Electric sold its Aerospace Division to Martin Marietta. Consequently, Martin Marietta doubled in size and in 1995 merged with Lockheed to become Lockheed Martin. All the facilities which once carried the names of GE Aerospace, Martin Marietta, or Lockheed, are now Lockheed Martin. Since its inception, announced with the slogan “And this is just the beginning!”, Lockheed Martin has been and continues to be the world’s largest weapons corporation as well as the U.S.’s largest international arms seller and the U.S.’s chief nuclear bomb contractor. Lockheed Martin has also become involved in the privatization [i.e. “for profit management”] of state welfare departments.

The same Lockheed Martin that produces the weapons control systems for Tomahawk Cruise Missiles in Valley Forge, PA (Lockheed Martin’s Management & Data Systems) is the very same Lockheed Martin that receives money from state governments (including the state of Pennsylvania) to process data, dispense checks to poor people, and administer jobs programs.

The same Lockheed Martin that manages the Oak Ridge, TN uranium processing complex (including depleted uranium ammunition) and other parts of the national nuclear bomb component, waste, and maintenance complex also produces, in Moorestown, NJ, the Aegis battle command system around which the Navy is producing its fleet of Aegis cruisers and destroyers. The U.S. Navy considers Aegis “the most powerful warfighting system today”.

Most of the sealaunched cruise missiles fired into Iraq or as part of the U.S./NATO war in the Balkans came from Aegis warships.

So we resist Lockheed Martin! Join us!

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May 13, 2002

WAGES OF SIN

By Christopher H. Schmitt, U.S. News & World Report

SPECIAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORT: Why lawbreakers still win government contracts

In the mid-1970s, Lockheed Aircraft Corp. was center stage in a scorching bribery scandal. Millions in secret payments were slipped to public officials and political parties around the globe, to curry favor and win government contracts.

Stung by the blowback, the company promised stringent reforms. Two decades later, Lockheed was again in the spotlight, pleading guilty to paying off an Egyptian official to win a deal for C-130 cargo planes. Once more, the company was contrite. Standing before a federal judge in 1995, a top executive pledged Lockheed’s “commitment to the highest ethical standards of conduct.”

In the years since, however, Lockheed’s troubles have only grown. The company has been named in at least 33 more cases covering overcharges on government contracts, improper technology transfer to China, falsifying results of nuclear safety tests, job discrimination, environmental pollution, and more.

These cases, some of which were in motion before the 1995 conviction, have produced at least $145.3 million in penalties, settlements, and restitution. And at least 13 more cases are pending.

Lockheed Martin, as the company is known today, says it has a vigorous ethics and compliance program. And, it turns out, that promise is good enough for the Pentagon. Last October, despite the company’s record, the federal government awarded Lockheed the richest military contract in history – a deal to build the nation’s next generation jet. The project, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, could be worth as much as $200 billion over several decades….

Little guys.

The military tops the government’s buying list – with contracts for $156.5 billion last year. Not surprisingly, some of the worst offenders are military contractors.

But while the government may be reluctant to move against its biggest suppliers, federal agencies don’t have the same qualms about cracking down on small firms. Officials maintain that federal rules are written evenhandedly, but they acknowledge that larger companies can naigate them more successfully.

Take James Verlander, a Houston-area researcher who in early 1990s got tangled up in Operation Lightning Strike, a federal sting operation targeting NASA suppliers. Federal agents drew Verlander and several others into a scheme revolving around a bogus medical device that supposedly could improve monitoring of space-station astronauts.

Threatened with a heavy prison sentence, he pleaded guilty to having accepted $2,000 as part of an effort to win approval and funding for the device, says his attorney, Charles Portz. Barred from government work ever since, Verlander suffered a nervous breakdown and has since become a medical technician.

By contrast, two big contractors that came under scrutiny in the affair – Martin Marietta and General Electric – settled their involvement by paying $1 million to defray the government’s expenses.

“They didn’t want to make arrests of the higher-up people because it would damage the space program,” says Portz, “so they busted a bunch of little people.”

Small fry get nailed more often because it’s more likely that senior executives were involved in any wrongdoing, say those familiar with the issue. And large contractors have more financial juice to make a case go away – to hire pricey legal talent, create compliance programs, or pay settlements.

“They’re pretty willing to settle it to stay in business,” says Jacques Ganaler, former undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, who is now a professor of public affairs at the University of Maryland….

For more on NASA’s “Wages of Sin,” GO TO > > > NASA…and the war on truth

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October 7, 2002

Lockheed Martin: Key Player in the Conquest and Militarization of Space

From: Nukewatch

We are here today as part of a global effort to call for an end to the weaponization and militarization of space.

The U.S. is seeking to control space through National Missile Defense (NMD), Space-Based lasers and Anti-Satellite weaponry. This facility, Lockheed Martin, is the primary contractor for NMD.

National Missile Defense is marketed to the public as a program that will make our nation a safer, more secure place. In reality, NMD is a costly, deceptive, and ill-conceived program whose principal function is offensive.

Costs

The Congressional Budget Office projected in Jan. 2002 that the NMD program envisioned by the Bush Administration could cost $238 billion by 2025. Since 1957, the U.S. has spent roughly $125 billion on NMD systems without producing a single workable device.

Lockheed Martin is running 30% over budget ($233 million) for the PAC-3 theater missile defense system.

Deception

The Pentagon alleges that the goals of missile defense are defensive. However, the Pentagon is moving ahead on a second front under the rubric of “missile defense” — Theater Missile Defense (TMD). TMD is an offensive system that aims to support U.S. forces overseas through missiles deployed on land, sea, air and space.

One of Lockheed’s proudest moments was the successful test of the Star Wars intercept system in 1984 – a critical factor in validating the much-criticized “missile shield” concept. In 1993, The New York Times revealed that the test was a fraud.

Ineffectiveness

Lockheed Martin’s Theater High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) has failed in 6 out of 8 tests to date, and yet they still received a contract extension worth up to $4 billion for continuing work on the system.

Jack Ruina, formerly of the Defense Department, writes, “If NMD deployment involved no more than spending a lot of money in pursuit of vain hope, it would only be a waste — a bad buy. But it’s also bad foreign policy.”

As the U.S. seeks domination of space, we are violating key international treaties and putting the world at risk of a new arms race. The bad seeds of warfare, greed, exploitation and environmental contamination are threatening this sacred frontier.

Join us in saying NO to Lockheed Martin and Star Wars!

NO to the weaponization and militarization of space!

$ $ $

August 13, 2002

Enron-Tainted Democrat Contributor Has Big Role in Bush Administration

Marc Morano, CNSNews.com

Political analysts are questioning the wisdom of the Bush administration in selecting a prominent Democrat donor with extensive ties to the Enron business scandal as the manager of a $350 million taxpayer supported development project in Africa.

Frank Savage is considered one of the most generous African-American donors to Democratic Party causes, but in light of Enron’s bankruptcy, is also characterized by one critic as a “shameless” personification of the recent American corporate scandals.

The Bush administration, receiving conflicting advice from prominent African-American politicians, recently extended Savage’s term as managing general partner of the Africa Millennium Fund, sponsored by the federal government’s Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC).

The fund will pay for infrastructure projects in sub-Saharan Africa dealing with energy, telecommunications and transportation. It “represents OPIC’s largest single financing commitment to date,” according to an Aug. 8, 2001 press release issued by the investment firm, Alliance Capital International, which Savage was chairing at that point but was about to leave to take up the position with OPIC.

U.S. taxpayers are due to pick up $227.5 million of the $350 million tab to provide a guarantee for private investors who, at Savage’s urging, are supposed to come up with the remaining $122.5 million.

Those private investors are being promised a 30 percent internal rate of return, which includes both income and capital appreciation. Savage’s original deadline for raising the private funds was the end of June, which he missed. OPIC recently extended the deadline to Sept. 30.

Ties to Gore, Hillary, Schumer

Time magazine, in a Jan. 14 article, called Savage “a major Democratic donor” who had given at least $100,000 to Democrats since 1999. Among the beneficiaries of Savage’s contributions were presidential candidate Al Gore and Sens. Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer of New York.

As a result of those political activities, some observers wonder why the Bush administration would keep Savage in such a high-profile position. Savage’s involvement in the Enron scandal also makes him a liability to the administration, those observers say.

‘Savage’s Record Is Appalling’

In a June article published by The American Prospect, journalist Joshua Green called Savage “an authentic bad apple” for his past role as a member of Enron’s board of directors and for his influence over the Florida state pension fund as chairman of Alliance Capital.

Green, who also edits The Washington Monthly magazine, wrote that “Savage’s record is appalling, even by the standards of Enron board members.”

The Florida state pension fund lost $334 million while Savage’s firm, Alliance Capital, managed the fund.

Under Savage’s supervision and using the Florida pension funds, Alliance Capital became Enron’s largest institutional investor.

When Enron’s stock plummeted as a result of its accounting scandal, so did the value of the Florida pension fund. Green wrote that Savage “wasn’t just asleep at one switch – he was asleep at two.”

Florida state officials sued Alliance Capital for negligence in May of this year.

However, according to Green, Savage was “shameless” after the Enron scandal became public.

“Not only did he decline to forego his $70,000 a year spot on Enron’s board, he refused to step down from the boards of Qualcom and the Lockheed Martin Corporation, despite a shareholder campaign [led by the AFL-CIO] to remove him,” Green wrote.

Savage will “serve as a reminder of the need for corporate responsibility,” Green added.

Kevin Martin, political and government affairs director for the African American Republican Leadership Council, believes the Bush administration selected Savage because it was trying to heal the political turmoil left over from the hotly contested 2000 Florida election results.

Using ‘Sellout’ to Make Nice With Democrats

“By having Savage work on this project, that was just one of [President Bush’s] ways of attempting to make peace with Democrats,” Martin said.

Martin, who believes the administration’s peace-making efforts failed, is also critical of Savage.

“He is one of these African-American Democratic sellouts who is more interested in photo-ops and fundraising than the betterment of the community,” Martin said.

‘Abuse of Federal Authority’

Howard Phillips, chairman of the Conservative Caucus, explained why he believes OPIC selected a Democrat such as Savage to lead the Africa Millennium Fund.

“As usual, they are sucking up to people who despise them,” Phillips said.

Phillips believes OPIC’s mission in Africa is “comprehensively unconstitutional.” He said the fund was using U.S. taxpayers as “the insurer of first resort” and likened Savage’s role as manager of the fund to the recent corporate scandals.

“I would characterize it as insider trading. Here is a guy who has contacts with people who are running a government agency and they are in effect using the credit of the taxpayer as political patronage,” Phillips explained.

“The very concept is an abuse of federal authority. It’s not unlike Enron cheating its employees and shareholders,” he added.

A source inside the Bush administration told CNSNews.com that Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., was unhappy with the original selection of Savage to head the Africa Millennium Fund and was further upset when Savage was given his recent fundraising extension. However, a spokesman for Watts had “no comment” about Savage when contacted by CNSNews.com.

Powell, Bloomberg Intervene

The Bush administration source also said Secretary of State Colin Powell and Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg lobbied to have Savage’s deadline extended. Both men have previous ties to Savage.

Powell served on the board of trustees for Howard University in Washington, D.C. when Savage chaired the panel. Savage also is on the board of directors for Bloomberg L.P., the company the mayor headed before taking office….

‘Lack of Confidence’

The Bush administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity told CNSNews.com, “The inability of Savage to raise money with a government guarantee speaks volumes for the lack of confidence that institutional investors feel toward him.”

Phillips noted that Savage would not need U.S. taxpayers to support the Africa Millennium Fund if it was engaged in projects that are financially viable.

“If the investments were sound, private banks and companies would insure them. You wouldn’t have to have Uncle Sucker take the hard working money from two-earner families to pay for this garbage,” Phillips said.

– Copyright CNSNews.com

* * *

April 22, 2003

Unions target corporate greed,
Lockheed director

Baltimore Business Journal

The International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) and the AFL-CIO say they are planning a rally for April 24 in opposition to the renomination of former Enron Corp. director Frank Savage to Lockheed Martin Corp.’s board of directors.

Lockheed Martin Corp.’s annual shareholder meeting is in Dayton, Ohio, April 24.

Union representatives say they oppose the renomination because of evidence that Savage and Enron’s board of directors “failed to exercise sufficient oversight and restraint” to curb management excess at Enron.

Savage, 64, has been a director at Lockheed since March 1995 and served as a director at Enron Corp. from 1999 to 2002, according to Lockheed’s most recent proxy statement. Savage has been the CEO of Savage Holdings LLC since August 2001 and was previously chairman of Alliance Capital Management International.

“The IAM is proud to take on the role of fighting for justice on the job and service to the community into the realm of corporate governance,” said R. Thomas Buffenbarger, the IAM’S national president.

© 2003 American City Business Journals Inc.

* * *

January 24, 2003

Lockheed, Raytheon Post Losses on Charges

By Mark Weinraub

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The United States may be spending more on the military, but defense contractors Raytheon Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. reported losses on Friday after making bad bets on businesses such as telecommunications and power.

Both companies saw their fourth-quarter profits wiped out by special charges at a time when the U.S. fight against terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks, and preparations for a possible war on Iraq, have lifted spending on national defense.

Lockheed reported a net loss of $347 million, while Raytheon posted a loss of $15 million.

Lockheed, which is based in Bethesda, Maryland and makes the F-22 Joint Strike Fighter, also warned that rising pension costs would hurt future earnings, and cut its 2003 profit forecast. Like other big companies with retirement programs, the largest U.S. defense contractor’s pension fund has been decimated by losses in the stock market….

LOCKHEED’S POOR PENSION PERFORMANCE

Lockheed said its net loss was due to $722 million in charges from items such as the impairment of telecommunications investments and a payment to a Russian manufacturer for commercial satellite launches. Lockheed also took a $106 million charge from the same satellite venture, called Space Imaging, as Raytheon….

Lockheed said that at the end of 2002 it took a $1.6 billion non-cash charge to its equity due to its pension fund.

Pension expense is likely to grow to about $490 million in 2003, up from an earlier forecast of at least $50 million, it said.

Lockheed’s stock was up 64 cents at $52.92 in morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange; Raytheon was up $2.25, or nearly 8 percent, at $30.80.

* * *

November 2, 2002

Decision sought in lawsuit against uranium plant

Associated Press

PADUCAH, Ky. – Whistleblowers who sued the former operator of the uranium plant at Paducah want a judge to force federal officials to decide whether to join the suit, which seeks hundreds of millions of dollars in refunds to the government….

The Justice Department on Thursday asked for an extension – the 13th extension since the suit was filed in June 1999 against Lockheed Martin Corp.

Plaintiffs in the suit in U.S. District Court include three current and former plant employees – Ronald B. Fowler, Charles F. Deuschle and Garland E. Jenkins. The Natural Resources Defense Council and one of its members, Thomas B. Cochran, also are plaintiffs.

Lockheed and its predecessors operated the uranium enrichment plant for the Department of Energy from 1982 until 1992.

The suit claims Lockheed made false statements involving storage and disposal of radioactive waste, exposure of workers to contaminants and contamination of groundwater and soil.

As a result, the suit alleges, Lockheed was paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fees that it didn’t deserve. It wants Lockheed to refund the money.

If successful, the whistleblowers would get up to 25 percent. Lockheed denies the claims.

The suit has been delayed while the Department of Justice and the Department of Energy have spent more than $1 million investigating the claims….

Attorneys for the whistleblowers contend in a court document filed Thursday that the investigation has “largely affirmed the allegations” made in the suit. However, the Energy Department hasn’t decided whether it will get involved, they contend.

In Thursday’s filing, Joe Egan, the lead attorney for the whistleblowers, said another extension was not justified.

But he asked U.S. District Judge Joseph McKinley Jr. to grant a delay until Dec. 17 “with instructions that this extension shall be the last.”…

For more on what you should know before you start to glow, GO TO > > > The Nuclear Nests

* * *

September 19, 2002

Lockheed, BAE will pay $6.2 million

The Courier-Journal

Lockheed Martin Corp. and BAE Systems Controls of Johnson City, N.Y. have agreed to pay the government $6.2 million in a civil case* involving alleged violation of the False Claims Act, the Justice Department announced yesterday.

The government alleged that, from 1987 through 1994, General Electric Co. and Martin Marietta Corp. delivered 1,300 aircraft components for Navy aircraft that did not comply with contractual requirements.

Martin Marietta Corp. bought GE’s operation in Johnson City in 1993 and Martin Marietta combined with Lockheed Corp. in 1995, creating Lockheed Martin.

BAE Systems bought Lockheed Martin’s operation in Johnson City two years ago. . . .

* (Catbird catcall: What, no criminal case?)

* * *

October 26, 2001

Lockheed Martin Corporation Wins $200 Billion Joint Strike Fighter Contract

Dow Jones reported that Lockheed Martin Corporation won a $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter contract, the biggest award in military history.

The award will allow Lockheed to build the plane that is to be the next-generation attack aircraft for the Air Force, Navy and Marines….

* * *

October 26, 2001

Lockheed Martin Corporation Agrees to Acquire OAO Corporation

Lockheed Martin’s Lockheed Martin Technology Services Corporation announced that it has signed a definitive agreement under which Lockheed Martin Technology Services will acquire the outstanding stock of OAO.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

* * *

< < < FLASHBACK < < <

July 31, 2000

Lockheed Martin and the GOP:

Profiteering and Pork Barrel Politics with a Purpose

An Arms Trade Resource Center Issue Brief by William D. Hartung and Frida Berrigan

I. Lott and Lockheed: Partners in Influence Peddling

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott kicked off the Republican National Convention a day early with a massive theme party and fundraiser near the campus of Drexel University. The party, which was attended by 1,500 faithful Lott supporters (plus one of the authors of this issue brief) was a lavish 1950s-style dance party emceed by Dick Clark with music by the Shirelles, Bobby Vee, and the Four Tops.

The “Lott Hop,” as it was called, was bankrolled almost entirely by major corporations and industry associations, including the American Gas Association, International Paper, and Lockheed Martin, the nation’s largest weapons contractor.

Lockheed Martin, which has denied that it sponsored the event in an attempt to influence the most powerful man in Congress, donated $60,000 towards the event. The company has also pledged $1 million to the “Trent Lott Leadership Institute” at the University of Mississippi.

What does Lockheed Martin have to celebrate about Trent Lott?

Lots!

In the past few years, the majority leader has helped bail out multi-billion dollar Lockheed Martin projects like the F-22 fighter, a $70 billion program that was almost stopped in its tracks last year by Representatives Jerry Lewis (R-CA) and Pennsylvania’s own Jack Murtha; the C-130 transport plane, which is routinely added to the Pentagon budget in quantities far beyond what the Pentagon requests; and the Theater High Altitude Area Defense project, THAAD, for which the company has just received a $4 billion multi-year contract despite the fact that it has failed in six of its eight tests.

II. Weapons Makers Largesse Favors Republicans

The relationship between Lott and Lockheed Martin is not unique. The top four missile defense contractors –Lockheed Martin, TRW, Boeing, and Raytheon — have made $6 million in political contributions in the current election cycle. The four firms also spent $34 million in lobbying in 1997/98 alone, a figure that will no doubt be exceeded when the final numbers of 1999/2000 are tallied.

Ever since the Republicans took control of Congress in January 1995, major weapons contractors have favored them over Democratic candidates by a 2 to 1 margin.

The weapons makers have good reason to reward the Republican party for its role in boosting weapons spending — since the Republicans took the House in 1995, Congress has routinely added $5 to $10 billion per year to the Pentagon budget beyond what the Clinton Administration has requested in its annual budget submissions.

As a result, the Pentagon budget will hit $310 billion next year, a Cold War level budget despite the fact that the Soviet Union no longer exists and the so-called “rogue states” that the Pentagon worries about most — Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea, and Cuba — taken together spend just one-eighteenth of what the United States spends on its military.

III. TRW and John Warner: Hail to the Chairman

Lockheed Martin isn’t the only weapons contractor looking to solidify its connections with key Republicans this week. TRW which is facing charges of fraud for manipulating results of tests related to the National Missile Defense (NMD) program — is throwing a luncheon for Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner at the Philadelphia Union Club at noon on July 31st.

Warner has been a key supporter of the NMD program. He led the Republican charge in defeating an amendment sponsored by Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois and Paul Wellstone of Minnesota that would have required the Pentagon to conduct realistic tests of the NMD system before making a deployment decision.

At issue is the fact pointed out by Dr. Ted Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a joint study group of experts from MIT and the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the American Physical Society (the nation’s largest professional organization of physicists) that the current NMD system has shown no capability to distinguish between a nuclear warhead and a simple decoy.

TRW research scientist Dr. Nira Schwartz has filed a civil suit against the company charging that they forced her to cover up research results documenting that their NMD “kill vehicle” failed to tell a mock warhead from a decoy 80 to 85% of the time.

IV. Bush and Cheney: the Arms Industry’s ‘Dream Team’

George W. Bush has strong ties to Lockheed Martin from his service as Governor of Texas, where he tried to give the firm a contract to run the Texas welfare system before he had to relent in the face of public protests and an unfavorable regulatory ruling by the Clinton administration.

Lockheed Martin VP Bruce Jackson is a finance chair of the Bush for President campaign, and was heard to brag at a conference last year that he would be in a position to “write the Republican platform” on defense if Bush gets the nomination (which he will, later this week).

Dick Cheney, the man who presided over the U.S.-led victory over Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Gulf War, has spent the past few years running the oil services giant Halliburton, which ranked 18th on the Pentagon’s top contractors list in FY 1999.

Cheney’s wife, Lynne, serves on Lockheed Martin’s board, a service for which she receives $120,000 in compensation. That’s small change for the Cheney family — Dick earned $26.7 million in wages, bonuses, and stock options last year — but it raises serious questions of conflict of interest when the potential “second lady” is on the payroll of the nation’s largest weapons maker.

V. The Bottom Line: Both Major Parties Have Been Bought Off

The answer to the weapons industry’s hold on the Republican party is NOT to turn to the Democrats. Under the leadership of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and the Democratic Leadership Council, the Democratic Party has been almost as pro-military as the Republicans, maintaining high military spending, throwing billions of dollars at missile defense, and reaping over $1.1 million in soft money from Bernard Schwartz of Loral Space and Communications in the most recent election cycle alone.

The answer is to get special interest money out of politics by supporting full public financing of presidential and congressional races on the “clean money” model, where candidates can successfully run for office without taking any corporate contributions.

* * *

From Executive Pay Watch:

Vance D. Coffman, Chairman CEO, Lockheed Martin

In 2000, Vance D. Coffman raked in $16,420,778 in total compensation from Lockheed Martin.

And Vance D. Coffman has $9,525,750 in unexercised stock options from previous years.

* * *

MOANA WAVE HISTORY

The R/V Moana Wave was built by Halter Marine Corporation in New Orleans, Louisiana, as an AGOR-class vessel for the United States Navy, and then leased to the University of Hawaii in a charter party agreement. R/V Moana Wave spent her first four years operating for the University on various research projects off South America, the west coast of the United States, and Alaska.

In January of 1977, she was chartered from Hawaii Institute of Geophysics (HIG) by the Naval Electronics System Command and spent the next six years operating out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Little Creek, Virginia. During that period, R/V Moana Wave was used in developing the Navy’s Surface Towed Array System and was the model for the present class of TAGOS ships that deploy the SURTASS system.

Upon completion of this project in February of 1984, R/V Moana Wave underwent an extensive overhaul and refit at Halter Marine Shipyard in Chickasaw, Alabama. The refit included adding a 30-ft section amidships, a deck house on the main deck, six scientist’s staterooms, additional lab space, and a command center. A 7-ft extension was also added to the main deck aft to provide more machinery space and work area.

In September of 1984,R/V Moana Wave returned to Honolulu for the first time in over 6 1/2 years. S he was then fitted out with additional deck machinery, electronics, and scientific equipment for her first post-conversion scientific cruise. The new R/V Moana Wave departed Honolulu on 16 December 1984 on her first research voyage to the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.

In 1999, the ship was declared surplus by the UofH and the USN and in 2000 title was transferred to the Clearwater Environmental Corporation of Anchorage, Alaska … which itself is a division of the Ahtna Regional Corporation (one of Alaska’s 13 Regional Native Corporations). Taken under management agreement with her new owner, R/V Moana Wave was rebuilt and refitted to become an ocean cable route survey vessel and has been under charter for doing cable route surveys across the Pacific Rim from North America to the Far East and back.

In the past 9 months the ship has steamed over 13,000 miles and provided survey data for three separate submarine fiber optic telecommunications systems.

* * *

July 4, 1996

Letters to the Editor

Honolulu Star-Bulletin

Somebody should sink idea of
building research vessel

It is hard to believe, in these times of budgetary problems, that anyone would suggest building a new oceanographic research vessel (Star-Bulletin, June 27). Much as I respect both Sen. Daniel Inouye and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, I can’t see how constructing the proposed vessel for the Navy, to be operated by the University of Hawaii, is anything but pork.

In order to obtain backing for this proposed $45 million investment, both senators must have had to agree to support other legislators who want a new bridge here, a new federal building there, a park over here, etc.

It is apparent that the three public or quasi-public agencies – the Navy, the UH and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute – really didn’t feel this was an important enough item to include in their respective budgets. Consequently, why should Congress spend hard-earned taxpayer money on this project?

If Inouye is so interested in helping the UH and Hawaii, why doesn’t he suggest spending one-tenth of the $45 million on completely refurbishing and modernizing the Moana Wave, using local facilities such as Honolulu Shipyard? In this manner, funds would be injected into Hawaii’s economy instead of elsewhere in the U.S.

– Edward H. Carus Jr.

New vessel will help us maintain scientific ranking

Your story (“Inouye backs $45 million ship for UH”) depicts Sen. Daniel Inouye aggressively pursuing this funding in the face of opposition, implying that it’s another pork barrel project of questionable utility.

In fact, the ship is sorely needed, and it has been at the top of the university’s list of projects for which federal funds are being sought for some time. . . .

The university’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology now ranks fifth in the U.S. for peer-reviewed ocean science funding from National Science Foundation. With no ship to drive the research enterprise, that ranking will fall. Although there is no guarantee that UH will be chosen to operate a new ship, we are grateful that our congressional delegation has sought to remedy the situation.

Any criticism of Inouye for including the funding in the 1997 defense budget is undeserved. Considering the importance of a strong academic teaching and research base for economic development in the United States, the upgrading of science and engineering facilities at colleges and universities is clearly in the country’s best interest. This need for new capital facilities and equipment is widely acknowledged. The federal government can and should play a leading role in this.

Dean O. Smith
Senior Vice President for Research and Graduate Education
University of Hawaii

* * *

Dan Inouye Press Releases:

INOUYE ANNOUNCES UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII TO RECEIVE $45 MILLION OCEANOGRAPHIC SHIP  

Friday, January 16, 1998

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, D.C. — United States Senator Daniel K. Inouye is pleased to announce that the U.S. Department of the Navy informed him that the University of Hawaii at Manoa was awarded a new oceanographic ship to replace the aging Moana Wave. In the Fiscal Year 1997 U.S. Department of Defense Appropriations bill, at Senator Inouye’s request $45 million was provided for the construction of this ship.

“I am most pleased to learn from the Department of the Navy that the $45 million oceanographic research vessel will be placed in the custody of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. This research vessel was sought by many well-known universities and oceanographic research laboratories. This decision confirms my high regard for the talent and expertise of the faculty and students at the University of Hawaii. I hope that the University of Hawaii will seriously consider home porting this vessel on the Island of Hawaii. The Big Island offers many suitable sites such as Hilo or Kawaihae Harbors to enhance the facilities and marine science operations at Keahole in Kona,” said Senator Inouye.

* * *

INOUYE ANNOUNCES HAWAII FIRM TO HELP BUILD UH RESEARCH SHIP Thursday, April 9, 1998

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, D.C. — United States Senator Daniel K. Inouye is pleased to announce that a Hawaii maritime company, Pacific Marine & Supply, is part of a national consortium that was recently awarded a $36 million contract to design and build the new SWATH oceanographic research vessel for the University of Hawaii (UH). The announcement was made by the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command.

When built, the new ship will join the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory Systems fleet of five research vessels owned by the Navy and operated under contract to various universities in the United States. The new Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH) oceanographic vessel will replace the retiring MOANA WAVE research vessel operated by the UH School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). SOEST has a long 30-year history of ocean research in the central and circum-Pacific ocean.

“I am most pleased to learn that Pacific Marine is a part of the winning bidder to build the oceanographic research vessel that will be placed in the custody of the University of Hawaii. I have confidence that together with Lockheed Marine and Ingalls Shipbuilding, they will deliver a state of the art vessel to Hawaii. I hope that the University of Hawaii will seriously consider homeporting this vessel on the Island of Hawaii. The Big Island offers many suitable sites such as Hilo Harbor to enhance the facilities and marine science operations at UH Hilo and at Keahole in Kona,” said Senator Inouye.

In addition to Pacific Marine, the winning consortium includes team leader Lockheed Marine of California, as well as Ingalls Shipbuilding of Mississippi. Phase I of the contract involves design work on the vessel, with a follow-up Phase II option to build the vessel. Pacific Marine is a pioneer in commercializing SWATH ship technology in the United States. In 1992, it teamed up with Lockheed Martin Corporation of California to research, develop and commercialize a fast SWATH hull form variant patented by Lockheed called SLICE.

* * *

November 9, 1999

Lockheed lands UH research ship deal

By Mike Gordon, Honolulu Advertiser

Instead of going to a shipyard, the Navy is breaking tradition and granting a $42.3 million contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. to build a unique research ship destined for the University of Hawaii.

Researchers at the university’s School of Ocean and Earth Science Technology are relieved that the contract has been signed. The contract had been in negotiations for about six months, and the school had retired its aging research ship, the 27-year-old Moana Wave.

In handing the contract to Lockheed Martin Launching Systems last week, the Navy broke from its historic practice of giving such contracts to shipyards, which usually purchase components from Lockheed and other firms.

“I am conscious that I am plowing new ground, and I am conscious that (high-ranking officers) are very interested in what we are doing,” said Capt. Doyle R. Kicthin, Navy manager for the program.

The 2,500-ton research ship will be built on an innovative Lockheed Martin design called Swath, which stands for small waterplane-area twin-hull. Similar to the Navatek cruise ships, the new vessel will rest above the surface of the water on stilts connected to two cigar-shaped submerged hulls.

The design is intended to keep the deck relatively stable, even in rough seas —— and that is something researchers are eager to use.

“We can transit at 12 knots, and it stays very stable,” said Patricia Cooper, the school’s associate dean of academic affairs. “That’s important for us. We need to be in labs setting things up. You can just imagine the problems with motion —— breaking beakers and barfing scientists.”

Cooper said the 182-foot-long ship will have a computer-controlled thruster system to keep it within 15 meters of any position researchers want to hover over. It also has a range of 10,000 nautical miles.

Scientists will be able to collect data, tow and recover instrument packages, monitor remotely operated vehicles and install and service deep sea moorings that are used for long term research programs, Cooper said.

It will have 2,000 square feet of working deck space and about 3,000 square feet of lab space.

“We already have a bunch of long-term programs that will take advantage of this ship,” she said. “I think it will attract scientists nationwide.”

The ship will be built at Atlantic Marine Inc. in Jacksonville, Fla. The university is expected to take delivery of the ship in September 2001.

Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, pushed Congress to approve $45 million in design, construction and operating money for the ship.

If the venture is successful, “we think it’s going to be a great new part of our business here in Baltimore,” said Mike Hughes, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Launching Systems.

Analysts said the contract for the ship could open the door for Lockheed Martin to the lucrative business of building ships and help lift the fortunes of the struggling defense giant.

Lockheed, better known as the maker of the F-16 fighter jet and C-130J transport plane, does about $2.5 billion worth of systems and services work for the Navy each year. But with the Navy determined to maintain a 300-ship fleet, shipbuilding is expected to be a growth area, said Todd B. Ernst, an analyst at Prudential Securities in New York.

“This (research) ship is on a much smaller scale, but we nevertheless think the big picture for this is going to be pretty robust,” Ernst said.

Lockheed Martin Launching Systems also is looking at commercial applications for the submerged-hull technology.

The firm has marketed a new, faster design called “Slice,” which was built for Lockheed by Pacific Marine & Supply in Hawaii. Lockheed hopes West Coast cities will like its stable platform for oceangoing ferries.

– The Associated Press contributed to this report.

* * *

November 19, 2000

Ahtna president wants name cleared on ship purchase

ANCHORAGE (AP) — The president of Ahtna Inc. has asked his board to investigate allegations that he and the head of an Ahtna subsidiary personally profited in a deal to purchase a ship.

The move comes after some board members at Glennallen-based Ahtna, one of the 13 Alaska Native regional corporations, raised questions about the deal.

An attorney for Ahtna president Darryl Jordan, as well as Ed Cronick, president of Anchorage-based subsidiary Clearwater Environmental Inc., denied any wrongdoing.

A financial officer for the companies said the dispute hinges on a misunderstanding of how the 210-foot research vessel Moana Wave was acquired and how it was accounted for on company books.

Jordan did not return phone calls for an interview by the Anchorage Daily News. In recent months, he has survived repeated split votes by the 13-member Ahtna board on whether he should continue as head of the company.

His attorney, John McCarron, said that Jordan had asked the board to look into the dispute and that Jordan could not speak publicly pending the outcome.

A state agency that administers surplus federal property also is investigating Ahtna’s acquisition of the ship, as well as an airplane.

Ahtna acquired the Moana Wave last year for a $50,000 fee through a government surplus property program. The ship is a former Navy vessel that had been used by the University of Hawaii for marine research.

The vessel subsequently was transferred to Ahtna subsidiary Clearwater and is now being contracted out on marine research jobs in the Pacific.

Some board members questioned the transfer as a maneuver to benefit Jordan and Cronick, who together own 49 percent of Clearwater, with Ahtna holding 51 percent.

The board authorized a committee of its members to hire an independent counsel to investigate. In a report Oct. 25, the attorney, Bruce Gagnon, wrote that the ship transfer appeared to have wiped out what would have been ”substantial losses” Clearwater would have recorded for 1999, and that ”Jordan and Cronick each made approximately $1.33 million in the process.”

They did because the ship was recorded in Clearwater’s books as $5.44 million in revenue. The booking also kept Ahtna in the black for 1999, according to the company’s annual report.

”While I am not an accountant, I have never heard of or seen a company reporting substantial income upon the acquisition of an asset such as the Moana Wave at nominal or no cost,” Gagnon wrote. ”I have confirmed the irregularity of this sort of reporting with three different certified public accountants.”

Patrick Anderson, an attorney for Ahtna, said Gagnon is ”a very fine attorney” but that he didn’t have complete information.

Dennis Mandell, chief financial officer for Ahtna subsidiaries, said both he and Clearwater’s auditor are confident the ship was properly booked as income.

”This is a very, very unique transaction,” he said.

He cited accounting rules that essentially donated property like the Moana Wave should be recorded as income based on its fair market value. Clearwater had the Moana Wave appraised and that’s where the $5.44 million figure came from, he said.

As for why the ship was transferred from Ahtna to Clearwater, said Mandell, it was always the intent that Clearwater end up with the ship and all Ahtna and Clearwater board members were so informed.

”It was Ed Cronick’s vision and drive that landed this opportunity,” Mandell said.

The ship originally went to Ahtna because the company had prior experience in acquiring surplus government property, he said.

However, due to surplus property rules particular to Native corporations, the ship, had Ahtna kept it, would have been confined to operating only in Alaska.

That rule didn’t apply to Clearwater, so the ship was transferred on the advice of government officials, Mandell said.

He agreed that Clearwater would have suffered a loss were it not for the Moana Wave income.

Some board members have said that Jordan has a conflict of interest in simultaneously owning part of Clearwater and heading Ahtna.

But that is negated because Jordan has made no secret of his interest in Clearwater and the board of Ahtna has not objected, Mandell said….

* * *

February 11, 2001

Ahtna board fires president, legal counsel

ANCHORAGE (AP) — The board of Ahtna Inc. has fired its president and chief executive officer. Darryl Jordan was removed Saturday in an 8-1 board vote.

Board Chairman L. Paul Mayo resigned from the board, according to a broadcast report by KFQD-radio.

The corporation will be operated by a committee of three board members until the top vacancy is filled. Ahtna’s legal counsel, Patrick Anderson, is also being replaced.

Ahtna is one of 13 Alaska Native regional corporations.

Jordan’s removal follows 13 months of dissension among the Glennallen-based corporation’s shareholders and allegations of mismanagement of corporation assets.

Some shareholders questioned Jordan’s status as a board member, president and chief executive officer of the corporation, while at the same time holding one-quarter ownership of Clearwater Environmental, one of Ahtna’s affiliate companies.

Jordan in November sought to clear his name and asked the Ahtna board to investigate allegations that he and the head of Clearwater Environmental, Ed Cronick, personally profited in a deal to purchase a ship.

Jordan’s management also has been questioned in regard to the company’s government surplus acquisition of an airplane, and its subsequent use, and consolidation of lines of credit between Ahtna and Clearwater.

The ship dispute hinged on the acquisition of the 210-foot research vessel Moana Wave and how it was accounted for on company books.

Ahtna acquired the Moana Wave in 1999 for a $50,000 fee through a government surplus property program. The ship is a former Navy vessel that had been used by the University of Hawaii for marine research.

The vessel subsequently was transferred to Clearwater Environmental and was being contracted out on marine research jobs in the Pacific.

Some board members questioned the transfer as a maneuver to benefit Jordan and Cronick, who together own 49 percent of Clearwater, with Ahtna holding 51 percent.

The board authorized a committee of its members to hire an independent counsel to investigate. In a report Oct. 25, the attorney, Bruce Gagnon, wrote that the ship transfer appeared to have wiped out what would have been ”substantial losses” Clearwater would have recorded for 1999, and that Jordan and Cronick each made approximately $1.33 million in the process.”

They did because the ship was recorded in Clearwater’s books as $5.44 million in revenue. The booking also kept Ahtna in the black for 1999, according to the company’s annual report.

An Anchorage Daily News story in November quoted Gagnon in his report saying he had never heard of or seen a company reporting substantial income upon the acquisition of an asset at nominal or no cost.

Dennis Mandell, chief financial officer for Ahtna subsidiaries, said both he and Clearwater’s auditor were confident the ship was properly booked as income.

He also said it was always the intent that Clearwater end up with the ship and all Ahtna and Clearwater board members were so informed.

”It was Ed Cronick’s vision and drive that landed this opportunity,” Mandell told the Anchorage Daily News.

The ship originally went to Ahtna because the company had prior experience in acquiring surplus government property, he said.

However, due to surplus property rules particular to Native corporations, the ship, had Ahtna kept it, would have been confined to operating only in Alaska.

That rule didn’t apply to Clearwater, so the ship was transferred on the advice of government officials, Mandell said. . . .

Kenai Peninsula Online

* * *

From Year of the RatHow Bill Clinton Compromised U.S. Security for Chinese Cash:

THE LOCKHEED – MARTIN AFFAIR

On May 30, 1998, a Chinese Long March rocket sent up a Lockheed-Martin telecommunications satellite called “ChinaStar1.”

Over the course of the past eight years there has been a steady trend in satellite operators from Australians, to legitimate commercial interests in Hong Kong, to COSTIND in civilian clothes in Hong Kong, to something mysterious in Singapore, and now to a Beijing-registered, PRC government-owned firm, China Orient Satellite Telecommunications (COSAT).

According to published reports, COSAT is a joint venture between the Chlinese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, and Polytechnologies.

Polytechnologies is the problem.

It is owned by the General Staff Department of the PLA and headed by Deng Xiaoping’s son-in-law.

POLY IS CHINA’S LEADING ARMS SMUGGLER AND THE CONDUIT FOR RUSSIAN ARMS TRANSFERS TO CHINA.

POLY WAS ALSO ONE OF TWO CHINESE ARMS SMUGGLERS CAUGHT BY U.S. CUSTOMS AGENTS TRYING TO SELL FULLY AUTOMATIC MACHINE GUNS TO U.S. DRUG GANGS IN 1996.

~ ~ ~

With regard to ChinaStar, Poly is alleged to have arranged with Lockheed to ensure that the satellite downlinks “passed through missile launching sites” in western China.

The operating assumption is that this is going to be primarily a command and control satellite for the PLA and for PLA business interests….

We have asked American military sources about COSAT but have been told that it is “too sensitive” to discuss….

If it was known to a foreign wire service as early as 1995 that COSAT was a front for the notorious Polytechnologies, why did the Clinton administration grant approval for the deal?

* * *

From If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates: . . .

Far from opposing the mating dances of corporate Goliaths, Washington actively encourages them.

In 1995, for example, the Pentagon was so pleased that the giant weapons maker Lockheed was going to take over competitor Martin Marietta that it ponied up nearly a billion of our tax dollars to pay for merger costs, including shelling out some $3 million in a bonus to Lockheed CEO Norman Augustine and $31 million more in bonuses to other top executives who engineered the merger– a combination that cost nineteen thousand workers their jobs.

The government payouts to Augustine and the other executives were orchestrated by then-secretary of defense William Perry and his deputy John Deutch— both of whom had previously been highly compensated consultants to Martin Marietta and had a close personal relationship with Augustine.

(An interesting footnote to this government-induced merger is that one fellow who lost his job as a result of it went away with a big grin on his face: Lamar Alexander–the hapless candidate for the Republican presidential nomination! He had been a well-paid, ex-board member. The merged company wanted a smaller board, so it paid Larmar $236,000 for agreeing not to serve on the new Lockheed Martin board.)

* * *

From tripod.com, by Kaplan and Dubro: . . . Perhaps the best-known case of underworld involvement with political figures is the bribery scandal in the early 1970s involving Lockheed Corp’s attempt to win All Nippon Airways Co. Ltd’s business.

A key figure in this affair was Yoshio Kodama, a liaison between politicians and underworld groups.

Using money from Lockheed, Mr. Kodama, whose power and influence with gangsters as well as politicians remains unmatched even after his 1984 death, targeted payments to key government officials– including former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanyaka– and employed the yakuza in a variety of capacities … to ensure that ANA selected Lockheed’s TriStar L-1011 wide-bodied jet over the competition’s planes. . . .

* * *

From The Laundrymen: . . .

Crooks aren’t the only ones who launder money.

Corporations do it to avoid or evade taxes, to defraud their shareholders, to get around currency control regulations, and to bribe prospective clients. …

The Lockheed Corporation laundered $25.5 million through a Liechtenstein trust to pay off Italian politicians.

Lockheed also subscribed to the laundry facilities of Deak-Perera, then an important American foreign exchange dealer, to bribe Japanese politicians.

As Lockheed’s behest, Deak put $8.3 million into the washing cycle, then brought it out in 15 untraceable payments to a Spanish priest in Hong Kong, who hand-carried the cash in flight bags and orange crates to Lockheed’s customers in Tokyo. . . .

* * *

November/December 2000

Holes in the Coverage

What’s left out of reporting on missile defense

By Michelle Ciarrocca

Even as skepticism over the proposed $60 billion national missile defense (NMD) system emerges in the headlines, the general assumption continues to be that sooner or later missile defenses will work.

Just days after President Clinton’s decision to defer a decision on deployment to the next administration, the New York Times (9/4/00) was quick to promote theater missile defenses, or what they called “lesser-known antimissile weapons.”

The article claims that the theater systems have been “extensively tested,” but fails to mention the results of those tests, which have been neither extensive nor successful. The PAC-3 system has achieved three intercepts out of five tests, the THAAD system has scored two hits out of eight attempts, and the Airborne Laser was successful in its only intercept attempt.

As a whole, the missile defense issue has enjoyed extensive coverage in the nation’s press. But important aspects, such as test records and technical critiques, the fraud and mismanagement charges involving the main missile defense contractors, and the special interests that have helped shape the debate have barely been addressed in the media.

Will it work?

Weeks before the Pentagon’s July 8 intercept test failure, the Baltimore Sun (6/21/00) noted that the Pentagon might back the NMD system even if the test failed. The week of the third and final intercept test before Clinton made his decision, Time (7/10/00) got to the heart of the matter with this headline: “Missile Impossible? This week’s $100 million test of the space shield is all but fixed.

Does the outcome matter?”

The answer: NO.

From the start, deployment of the NMD system has been treated like a foregone conclusion with little thought (or doubt) given to its technological merits. As Larry Korb from the Council on Foreign Relations aptly summed it up, the prevalent belief is “If you build it, it will work.”

The Clinton administration’s proposed NMD system has been rightly touted as the Pentagon’s most demanding weapon system ever, “involving technologies so sophisticated that some haven’t even been invented” (Boston Globe, 8/9/00).

But what is generally lacking in the media’s coverage is the fact that the Pentagon expects to test the NMD system less than typical military systems with less demanding missions. To date, the NMD system has completed only three of the scheduled 19 intercept tests. The record: 1 hit, 2 misses. By contrast, the Patriot missile system (which has a far less difficult task than NMD) succeeded in 17 out of 17 tests before being deployed. The Patriot performed far worse under actual combat conditions during the Gulf War, hitting only about 10 percent of its targets.

Furthermore, all the variations of missile defense involve “Hit-to-Kill” technologies, which have failed in the vast majority of tests conducted over the past decade. The New York Times (6/30/00) was one of the few places where this critical fact was pointed out: “Since research on so-called hit-to-kill weapons began in 1976, attempts to destroy mock warheads have failed more than 70 percent of the time.”

Test results notwithstanding, advocates of the system have been able to spin failures into “successes.”

The Los Angeles Times (1/20/00) reported that after the January 2000 intercept test failure, Pentagon officials were quick to point out all the “bright spots in the test results.”

According to the New York Times (7/15/00), there was agreement “among technically knowledgeable observers on all sides of the debate” that “the generally low-tech breakdowns that have caused the test failures……say little about whether the program will eventually succeed.”

Yet if the developers can’t even master the low-tech components of the system, how can the United States entrust them to develop the Pentagon’s most challenging weapons system ever?

Unnoted critiques

A blind faith in science and technology appears to have seeped into the media, obscuring the many technical critiques that have emerged over the past year.

Philip Coyle, the Pentagon’s director of operational testing and evaluation, issued his annual report on NMD in February 2000. He highlighted the “undue pressure” being placed on the program, saying: “The NMD program will have to compress the work of 10 to 12 years into eight or less years…. This pattern has historically resulted in a negative effect on virtually every troubled DOD development program.”

General Accounting Office (GAO) report released on May 31, 2000 was also critical of the NMD program. Among its concerns were the risks in developing the system because of restrictions in the test flights, the potential for rising costs and the uncertainty of the missile threat facing the United States.

Most recently, the independent Welch panel, headed by former Air Force chief of staff Larry Welch, released the latest of three critical reports on the missile defense program. The panel’s June 2000 report questioned the system’s ability to address realistic decoys and countermeasures. The earlier reports pointed to systematic flaws in design, planning and management, and warned that the program was on a “rush to failure” schedule.

While these critiques created one-day news flashes upon their release, media have failed to convey their importance in coverage of the NMD intercept tests. In the aftermath of the most recent test, which took place on July 8, no major newspapers mentioned any of the above critiques.

Special interests drive program

Beyond the technical hurdles NMD still has to clear, the special interests pushing the missile defense issue have rarely made it to the surface in media coverage. Through campaign contributions and extensive lobbying efforts, the military industry has played a pivotal role in putting NMD back on the agenda.

“Over the last decade,” the New York Times reported in an exceptional piece (6/13/00), “the arms industry has spent $49 million in campaign contributions to Washington politicians and an additional $2 million in a more subtle and indirect campaign that they say has helped create an atmosphere in which the pressure to build an antimissile system weighs heavily on both parties.”

Data from the Center for Responsive Politics reveals that the “Big 4” missile defense contractors--Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and TRW–have given out almost $7 million in PAC and soft-money contributions since 1997. And in 1997 and 1998, the most recent years for which figures are available, the four spent a whopping $34 million on lobbying.

The top missile defense contractors have also been generous supporters of the often-quoted Frank Gaffney Jr., a leading proponent of NMD who heads the Center for Security Policy in Washington. In a New York Times article (9/6/00), Gaffney is quoted calling ads from the disarmament group Peace Action “misleading.”

But it seems far more misleading that the article failed to mention that Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy receives more than 15 percent of its annual revenue from corporate sponsors, including Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The Rumsfeld commission, which found that the missile threat facing the U.S. is “evolving more rapidly” than had been reported, was described as a “bipartisan commission that has been determining the threat posed to the United States by ballistic missiles” (Washington Post, 7/29/98).

But the makeup of the commission, chaired by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, calls into question the group’s impartiality.

Center for Security Policy board members William Graham and William Schneider served on the panel, and CSP has publicly bragged that a number of its former staffers and interns went on to serve as staff members of the Rumsfeld commission.

Donald Rumsfeld is a financial supporter of the Center for Security Policy, as well as a board member of Empower America, a group that ran a series of pro-“Star Wars” radio ads during the 1998 elections.

While Long Island Newsday (7/16/98) rightly noted that the commission was “created by the Republican Congressional leadership,” none of these personnel details were revealed in media coverage of the Rumsfeld report.

Conflicts and corruption

Given that the results of the missile defense tests Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and TRW are helping to carry out will determine whether they begin reaping lucrative, multi-billion-dollar production contracts, these major corporate players have a serious and direct conflict of interest.

All of these companies have questionable records, with histories of corruption, cost overruns and mismanagement. The shameful record of these corporations has not been incorporated in the coverage of the NMD program, but instead hidden in the business section of the newspapers.

For example, Raytheon settled a lawsuit in 1999 charging that it “had engaged in at least three days of industrial spying that included video and audio surveillance and thefts of documents” (Boston Globe, 5/13/99).

The L.A. Times reported that “the FBI is looking into allegations that defense giant TRW was guilty of fraud and cover-up in developing a key component of the controversial national missile defense” (L.A. Times, 9/12/00), allegedly faking test data to conceal that the prototype “kill vehicle” – the critical part of the NMD system – could not pick out warheads from decoys.

Lockheed Martin, contractor for the NMD payload launch vehicle, experienced a series of embarrassing and expensive launch failures of its rockets and satellites recently, with “more than $2 billion worth of military and private satellites being either destroyed or deployed into useless orbits” (Washington Post, 9/1/99).

Moreover, Lockheed colluded with the Pentagon in June 1984 in rigging the allegedly successful intercept test of Reagan’s Star Wars system.

Nine years later the truth came out, that “the target was artificially heated to make it a bigger target” and “an explosive charge had also been placed on the target missile” (New York Times, 8/27/93). But officials denied that they rigged the test, maintaining that it was a “normal test event.”

The histories of corporate fraud and corruption on the part of the contractors, the millions of dollars of special interests money influencing the missile defense debate, and the understatement of the technical impediments facing the NMD system have been given too little attention in the media.

Before the next president decides on deployment, media should ensure that all aspects of the missile defense issue are out in the open.

– Michelle Ciarrocca is a research associate at the World Policy Institute in New York.

* * *

An Open Letter of Congratulations from a DOE Whistleblower

Ms. Bonnie Bautz
Inspector General Office
Department of Energy
55 Jefferson Circle, Rm 113
Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830

Dear Bonnie Bautz:

I remember so well your enthusiastic denial that it would happen just this way when we first discussed my whistleblowing case years ago. Yet as I predicted then, each element has come to pass:

>> The Department of Energy and Lockheed Martin have quietly behind the scenes made a few changes to insure that future violations would be less overt and obvious.

>> They have buried my complaint under mountains of meaningless forms, investigations, and paperwork.

>> They have punished me for being the messenger of an unwanted truth.

>> They have used you in a ruse investigation as a pawn in their cover up.

>> Hazel O’Leary, like every other politician has talked out of both sides of her mouth, while living it up on our tax dollars. She has issued reams of meaningless drivel about the importance of whistleblowers, and how they are valued at DOE, while gadding about the world at public expense, and spending more to have her staff justify it.

While I hate to be so right, it does seem the more things change, the more public graft and corruption stay the same. Yet they are evolving ever more prevalent, artful, and beyond all control.

I am neither smug nor bitter at this NOT so unexpected flow of events. I remain however defiant and resolute in my effort to point out that it has been the master, all along, stealing from his own wood pile, and blaming it on some poor darkie. The wheel of life rolls, and the top eventually becomes the bottom, corruption most often holds the seeds of its own destruction. Regardless, time marches on.

Marginalization is a complex process by which a privileged few bend and distort the law and public perception to deprive others of their rights. The law is ignored when inconvenient to the powered few. Public relations propaganda is used to trivialize and defame the target group, and to valorize the privileged group, creating a false perception of who wears the white hats, and who it is that truly respects the law. Human rights violations are buried in a barrage of meaningless confusion. Power and influence are used to close off access to redress and justice. An artful slight-of-hand renders the whole scandal as invisible as air.

In the end, status quo is maintained, as well as appearances and ideals, if only mythically. The law is brutalized, the civil rights are trivialized, but the disadvantaged have been kept in their “proper place.” Business may proceed as usual.

A pseudoharmony is perpetuated on the backs of those that the bigots at the top so disdain, and few if any of the apathetic masses are bit the wiser. This whole process is well known to the American Indian (or any other indigenous people) who has been the victim of it for centuries, and studied it in and out, while asking neither sympathy, nor demanding change.

In patient defiance I remain,

David K. Hackett, Whistleblower

# # #

 

In June, 2000, it was announced that Secretary of Commerce William Daley was resigning his post to become AL GORE’S campaign manager. A few days later, it was announced that PRESIDENT CLINTON had named NORMAN MINETA his choice for the new Secretary of Commerce.

* * *

Before being named Secretary of Commerce,

NORMAN MINETA

– a former California congressman –

was an

EXECUTIVE

and

LOBBYIST

for

LOCKHEED MARTIN!

* * *

In January, 2001, GEORGE W. BUSH (R) named NORMAN MINETA (D) as his SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION.

~ ~ ~

On September 11, 2001, under the watch of NORMAN MINETA, four U.S. airliners were hijacked.

~ ~ ~

On October 27, 2001, LOCKHEED MARTIN was awarded the largest military contract in the history of our country.

~ ~ ~


 

 

FOR MORE CONNECTED NESTS, FLY TO > > >

 

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PART IPART II

 


 

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Last update July 29, 2006, by The Catbird.

 

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