The Profiteers

by Sally Denton

  “looked like a blueprint”: IMRA.

  “It was widely known”: Pollard, quoted in Blitzer, Territory of Lies, 209.

  “to provide Israel” . . . “collection requirements”: Jonathan Jay Pollard Espionage Case, v–viii. According to a 2013 author interview with investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, who has written about the Pollard Affair, Pollard’s handler, Eitan, was trading Pollard’s classified information with the Soviet Union in exchange for help in getting Jews out of Russia.

  Kurt Lohbek, Pollard’s friend and, according to Pollard, fellow spy, described Eitan as “the former deputy chief of operations for the Mossad who was involved in the Adolph Eichmann affair.” At the time he was Pollard’s handler, according to Lohbeck, Eitan “headed a small, highly covert intelligence section of the Israeli Defense Ministry called ‘Lakam.’ Passed over for promotion as head of the Mossad, he was described as having a ‘score to settle with Mossad.’ ” Kurt Lohbeck, Holy War, Unholy Victory: Eyewitness to the CIA’s Secret War in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1993), 132. Pollard also claimed that Eitan was involved in “some type of intense bureaucratic competition with the Mossad.” Shaw, Miscarriage of Justice, 99.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE TERRITORY OF LIES

  The Territory of Lies: Pollard, quoted in Blitzer, Territory of Lies.

  “known and appreciated”: Jonathan Jay Pollard Espionage Case, v–viii.

  “the urgency of their requests”: Blitzer, Territory of Lies, 102.

  “shocked the hell out of them”: Pollard, quoted in Elliot Goldenberg, The Hunting Horse: The Truth Behind the Jonathan Pollard Spy Case (New York: Prometheus Books, 2000), 213.

  “Everything I seemed”: Blitzer, Territory of Lies, 102.

  For more about the chemical warfare complex, see Goldenberg, Hunting Horse, 211.

  “What was I supposed to do?”: Pollard, quoted in Barouch Levy, “Pollard and the U.S. Government: A Polity of Amorality,” Arutz Sheva, November 28, 2014.

  “together with U.S.”: Wesley Phelan, “The True Motives Behind the Sentencing of Jonathan Pollard” (interview with Angelo Codevilla), Washington Weekly, January 11, 1999.

  “were of a number”: Crovitz, “Even Pollard Deserves.”

  Lohbeck would contend that he never purchased any classified documents from Pollard, but rather was used by Pollard as a “red herring to throw [FBI agents] off the trail of the Israeli agent” who had bought the documents. Pollard identified Lohbeck as “a recognized liaison to the [Afghan] mujahideen” who had access to classified documents. Also see Erwin Knoll, “Journalistic Jihad: Holes in the Coverage of a Holy War,” Progressive, May 1990, 17–22.

  “Jay laughed”: Lohbeck, 133.

  “Wiping away beaded perspiration” . . . “You must leave!” . . . “get out”: Shaw, Miscarriage of Justice, 37–38.

  “told his parents”: Ibid., 62. The movie Three Days of the Condor is based upon the 1974 spy thriller written by investigative reporter James Grady.

  “deliver the knockout punch”: Ibid., 127.

  “to conceive of a greater harm”: Supplemental Declaration.

  “severe punishment” . . . “magnitude of the treason”: Declaration of the Secretary, 45.

  “As secretary of state”: Gil Hoffman, “George Shultz Urges Obama to Free Pollard,” Jerusalem Post, January 12, 2011.

  “a slender child”: Ronald J. Olive, Capturing Jonathan Pollard: How One of the Most Notorious Spies in American History Was Brought to Justice (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 7.

  “mama’s boy”: Shaw, Miscarriage of Justice, 48.

  “sounded like something”: Letter from Pollard to his father, quoted in Shaw, Miscarriage of Justice, 149.

  “I would rather spend”: Pollard, quoted in Levy, “Pollard and the U.S. Government.”

  “Jews judging Jews”: Shaw, Miscarriage of Justice, 153.

  “American counterpart”: Levy, “Pollard and the U.S. Government.”

  “should have been shot”: Weinberger, quoted in Blitzer, Territory of Lies, 238.

  “contradicted what the US government”: Phelan, “True Motives Behind Sentencing of Jonathan Pollard.”

  “Year of the Spy”: The CIA dubbed 1985 the Year of the Spy because fourteen Americans were arrested and/or convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and its allies, as well as for Israel, China, and Ghana. Included were John Walker, Edward Lee Howard, Aldrich Ames, and Robert Hanssen.

  “busted the most secret” . . . “Neither Pollard nor the government”: Loftus and Aarons, Secret War, 402. Loftus and Aarons contend that by fixing the beginning date for Iran-Contra in 1985 rather than in 1984, as Pollard contended, the Reagan administration attempted to scapegoat Israel. “In its rush to conclude the Iran-Contra inquiry in just three months, Congress ignored several leads to the 1984 French connection and started its investigation with the Israeli involvement in 1985. As a result, Congress missed the beginning of the Iran-Contra affair by a full year. No one even asked [coconspirators] North, or Bush, or Gregg, or McFarlane what he was doing in 1984 and before. Congress fell for the cover story and assumed that the Israelis began the first arms-for-hostages deal in the summer of 1985.” Loftus and Aarons, Secret War, 455.

  As scholars Block and Weaver put it, “neither the commission, nor the independent counsel, nor the congressional committees that investigated the ensuing scandals, got it right. The US sale of weapons to Iran was assuredly begun prior to the hostage taking in Lebanon. There is some intimation of this in a congressional research service paper written by Richard M. Preece in January 1984 and updated that August. Preece noted that by 1983, a considerable illicit traffic in U.S. arms to Iran had developed.” Block and Weaver, All Is Clouded by Desire, 89.

  Block and Weaver contend that the idea of clandestine sales of US weapons to Iran “originated in summer 1984, when international arms dealers—Adnan Khashoggi, and most importantly Manucher Ghorbanifar, a former Savak officer (Iranian intelligence organization under the shah)—desired to move the United States and Iran into an ‘arms relationship.’ ” Ibid., 87.

  “Joseph DiGenova” . . . “He has argued”: Goldenberg, Hunting Horse, 16.

  “The Hunting Horse”: Ibid., 2.

  “History proved”: Shaw, Miscarriage of Justice, 129. Regarding Reagan’s speech denying Weinberger’s culpability, see Shaw, Miscarriage of Justice, 147.

  “With my eyes shut”: Pollard, “First Memorandum In Aid of Sentencing,” August 20, 1986. Classified “Secret.” Declassified November 13, 2014, U.S. National Archives.

  A 2014 book based upon tens of thousands of pages of recently declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive placed Reagan at the center of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal. The book, Iran-Contra: Reagan’s Scandal and the Unchecked Abuse of Presidential Power by Malcolm Byrne (University Press of Kansas), shows that Reagan “stood at the epicenter of the scandal both in terms of his willingness to break the law in order to free American hostages in Lebanon and his failure to take account of the costs and consequences of his decisions, including the illicit conduct of numerous aides.” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 483, posted September 5, 2014, www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB483.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: A TANGLED SCHEME

  “the most dangerous breach”: Lawrence E. Walsh, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), jacket copy.

  “At the time”: Ibid., xiv.

  “One of the most complicated”: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/frenzy/iran.htm.

  “a tangled scheme”: Dwyer et al., quoted in Loftus and Aarons, Secret War, 489.

  “Saddam may have been”: St. Clair, “Bechtel, More Powerful Than the U.S. Army,” 8.

  “offended” . . . “underlying hostility”: Malcolm Byrne, “Saddam Hussein: More Secret History,” National Security Archive, George Washington University’s Gelman Library, www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/N
SAEBB/NSAEBB107.

  “the depth of Iraqi feeling” . . . “global lobbying blitz”: Dwyer et al., “Bechtel’s Iraqi Pipe Dream Could Land It in Hot Water,” BusinessWeek, February 22, 1988, 33.

  “surfaced in several”: Block and Weaver, All Is Clouded by Desire, 71. Rappaport had also played a key role in the CIA’s secret financial aid to the Afghan rebels fighting Soviet troops, “a program constructed by Casey when he became the Agency’s director.” Ibid., 27.

  “In a project where the lines”: Vallette, Kretzmann, and Wysham, Crude Vision, 21.

  “a reduction worth $650 million”: New York Times, February 25, 1988.

  “I am following with great interest”: Peres, quoted in Block and Weaver, All Is Clouded by Desire, 78–79.

  “anything of value”: George Lardner, “Pipeline Promoter to Aid in Probe: Special Counsel Gives Rappaport Immunity in Meese Investigation,” Washington Post, March 5, 1988.

  At the same time that McKay and Walsh were investigating the machinations surrounding the Aqaba pipeline, the FBI was targeting Bechtel in a probe involving the bribery of South Korean officials in possible violation of the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. “A whistleblower who was highly placed in Bechtel and familiar with the alleged corruption has told the FBI that he has reason to believe that Weinberger knew about it,” according to a team of investigative reporters who examined the events that occurred between 1978 and 1980, while Weinberger and Shultz were top executives at Bechtel. In 1977 the Seoul government announced plans to build twenty-one nuclear plants, and President Jimmy Carter dispatched John L. Moore, head of Ex-Im Bank, to South Korea “to convey the bank’s support for the newly installed military regime.” A short time later, Bechtel lured Moore away from Ex-Im with the creation of a new position for him as executive vice president for financing services. See Dowie et al., “Bechtel: A Tale of Corruption.”

  “most derided”: Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 834.

  “The twists and turns”: George Lardner, “Iraqi Pipeline: Exploiting Security, Project Illustrates Use of U.S. Interests by Business Promoters,” Washington Post, February 1, 1988.

  “a protection racket”: Lardner, “Pipeline Promoter to Aid in Probe.”

  “use of under-the-table”: Michael Wines and Ronald J. Ostrow, “Pipeline Deal: How Private Citizens Use Public Power,” Los Angeles Times, February 7, 1988.

  “quid pro quo”: Rappaport, quoted in Vallette, Kretzmann, and Wysham, Crude Vision, 6.

  “What is clear”: Joan Mower, “Clash of Interests: Iran-Contra, Pipeline Scandals Strain U.S.-Israeli Ties,” Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Florida), March 27, 1988.

  “That unwelcome attention”: Stephen Labaton, “Role in Scuttled Iraqi Pipeline Brings U.S. Probe to Bechtel,” Globe and Mail (Toronto), February 25, 1988.

  “becoming an object”: St. Clair, “Bechtel, More Powerful Than the U.S. Army,” 10.

  “Though the pipeline”: Block and Weaver, All Is Clouded by Desire, 80.

  “any illegality” . . . “tried to distance themselves”: New York Times, February 24, 1988. See also Labaton, “Role in Scuttled.”

  “though rich and successful”: Block and Weaver, All Is Clouded by Desire, 90–91.

  “choking with rage” . . . “Israel agreed”: Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 2, 1988.

  “had been bending over backward”: Loftus and Aarons, Secret War, 489.

  “American and foreign businessmen”: Lando, Web of Deceit, 2.

  For details of the Aqaba pipeline, see also James C. McKay, Report of Independent Counsel: In Re: Edwin Meese III. “Part Seven, Aqaba Pipeline Project” (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1988). See also Christopher Drew, “President Has Faith in Meese,” Chicago Tribune, February 24, 1988, for details about E. Robert Wallach’s 1985 memo to Meese confirming the arrangement for $65 million to $75 million a year for ten years to Peres.

  “lengthy diatribe” . . . “fulminated” . . . “part of a Zionist” . . . “vented his spleen” . . . “turn to non-U.S. suppliers”: “Minister of Industry Blasts Senate Action.”

  PART THREE: DIVIDING THE SPOILS, 1989–2008

  The modern era of Bechtel—1989–2008—received more public attention than any of the previous decades, especially the company’s involvement in the lead up to the US war on Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Bechtel’s massive contract for Iraqi reconstruction was the subject of dozens of books and hundreds of news articles throughout the world, as well as Inspector General and congressional investigations.

  “War began last week”: Diana B. Henriques, “Which Companies Will Put Iraq Back Together?” New York Times, March 23, 2003.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

  Deal with the Devil: Gonzales, quoted in Peter Mantius, Shell Game: A True Story of Banking, Spies, Lies, Politics—and the Arming of Saddam Hussein (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 12.

  “by all accounts”: McCartney, Friends in High Places, 236.

  “The U.S. embassy” . . . “thought nothing”: Friedman, Spider’s Web, 117.

  “the company never knew”: Friedman, “Warning Forced Bechtel.”

  “able to acquire” . . . “There was no way”: Koppel, “How U.S. Arms.”

  “the mother of all foreign policy” . . . “run-of-the-mill”: Gonzalez, “Lesson No. 4.”

  “executive branch, working with”: Mantius, Shell Game, 5.

  “When it comes to governmental relations”: St. Clair, “Bechtel, More Powerful Than the U.S. Army,” 5.

  “fevered imaginings” . . . “mixing their private”: Greider, “Boys from Bechtel.”

  “slid back and forth”: Roger Morris, Partners in Power: The Clintons and Their America (New York: Henry Holt, 1996), 345.

  “something is going to go”: Shultz, quoted in Friedman, Spider’s Web, 118.

  “world gray market”: “Iraqgate: Saddam Hussein, U.S. Policy and the Prelude to the Persian Gulf War, 1980–1994,” http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com/marketing/about.jsp.

  “The United States spent”: Crogan, Part II.

  “Hitler revisited”: Lando, Web of Deceit, 148.

  “Many trace the breakdown”: Antonia Juhasz, “The Corporate Invasion of Iraq,” LeftTurn, August/September 2003.

  “American officials tolerated”: Crogan, Part III.

  “in ways far removed” . . . “tents on a corner” . . . “Within, in gardens”: John F. Burns, “Confrontation in the Gulf—Baghdad’s U.S. Hostages: Escape Plans and Anger,” New York Times, October 7, 1990.

  “Riley Bechtel essentially camped” . . . “every Bechtel person” . . . “quietly with Kuwaiti officials” . . . “As the Desert Storm” . . . “The destruction”: Bechtel website, www.bechtel.com/BAC-Chapter-7.html.

  See also Richard Lelby, “Iraqi Hostage Seeks Justice,” Washington Post, December 1, 2002, for details of hostage taking.

  “walked across the zone” . . . “The wells were extinguished”: Streitfeld, “Quiet Ambition at Work.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: THE GIANT LAND OF BECHTEL

  “The white hope, the brains”: McCartney, Friends in High Places, 236.

  “Not only was he”: Ibid., 235.

  “number three dog”: www.bechtel.com/BAC-Riley-P-Bechtel.html.

  “One Bechtel”: www.bechtel.com/BAC-Chapter-7.html.

  “closed-cycle process” . . . “An emphasis” . . . “the world’s most”: Ibid.

  “Bechtel engineers for years” . . . “There is no way”: Arnold. See also Baker, “Big Dig Tragedy.”

  “This is a pretty small job” . . . “If total expenditures” . . . “Rather than depress” . . . “having the equivalent”: Nies, “Bechtel in Boston and Black Mesa” (unpublished manuscript).

  “With a cadre”: Raphael Lewis and Sean P. Murphy, “Lobbying Translates into Clout,” Boston Globe, February 11, 2003.

  “as the costs” . . . “a remarkable run”: Nies, “Bechtel in Boston.”

  “Big
Dig chain of command”: David S. Bernstein, “A Handy Guide to the Big Dig Screw-Up,” Phoenix, July 27, 2006.

  “Steve Sr. had so many times” . . . “If we don’t have a client”: www.bechtel.com/BAC-Chapter-6.html.

  “Ethnic, religious, and territorial”: Steve Coll, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power (New York: Penguin Press, 2012), 17–18.

  “human needs”: www.bechtel.com/BAC-Chapter-6.html.

  “the largest American colony”: Ingram, Builder and His Family, 96.

  “become a signal” . . . “There is a sense” . . . “Working with Bechtel”: Matthew Brunwasser, “Steamrolled: A Special Investigation into the Diplomacy of Doing Business Abroad,” Foreign Policy, January 30, 2015.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: SOME FOUND THE COMPANY ARROGANT

  “from Dubai to Dallas” . . . “core competencies” . . . “Most conglomerates ultimately falter” . . . “ ‘homegrown’ ” . . . “formalize and clarify” . . . “eliminating corporate waste” . . . “The company now needed” . . . “matrix fashion” . . . “Regions” . . . “The center of Bechtel’s”: www.bechtel.com/BAC-Chapter-7.html.

  “more of a militarylike”: Seth Lubove, “A Piece of the Action,” Forbes, May 31, 1999.

  “the perception of Bechtel” . . . “Bechtel, some thought”: www.bechtel.com/BAC-Chapter-7.html.

  “The year 1992”: Weinberger with Roberts, In the Arena, 347.

  “a pawn in a clearly political game” . . . “vindictive wretch”: Special Prosecutor James Brosnahan responded to Weinberger: “Our case was breathtakingly simple. It had nothing to do with policy. It had nothing to do with politics. It had to do with the secretary of defense being asked questions and giving answers which the grand jury found were false. That was the case.” Bensky, “End Game.”

  “Weinberger gave a little glimpse” . . . “breathtaking and poisonous”: Mary McGrory, quoted in Shaw, Miscarriage of Justice, 132.

  “When confronted with scandals”: Walsh, Firewall, 490–91.