did lady bird johnson profit from the vietnam war

For one thing, those big terminals, the Mina al-Bakr and the Khor al-Amaya were inviting targets. And Lady Bird is even sending Lyndon Johnson notes, comments on speeches and other notes during the day written on office of the vice president stationery, which, of course, Lyndon Johnson was the vice president. He destroyed the man in a set of hearings that would lay the groundwork for the show trials of the McCarthy era. Of course, the deal had sublime benefits for the Clinton administration as well. In a way then, its not surprising that Cheneys official biography, posted on the White Houses website, forsakes all mention of his career as the commander-in-chief of Halliburton. As the war drew to a close, Brown & Root went from building ships to melting more than 20,000 surplus airplanes they bought on the cheap from the War Assets Administration. When LBJs fortunes rose on the Hill, so did Brown & Roots. Cheney didnt have much experience in the corporate world before becoming Halliburtons chieftain and his tenure there shows it. She is a senior research fellow at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin and the creator, host and executive producer of the podcast In Plain Sight. Her fourth book, Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight comes out March 16, 2021 from Random House. Halliburtons big innovation was something called the Cement Jet Mixer. We just have to look. By 1968, the United States had 548,000 troops in Vietnam and had Ironically, Altanmia executives griped that they were forced to charge that hefty amount in order to cover the kickbacks and bribes they were forced to pay to Halliburton officials in order to secure the contract. LBJ also enjoyed free access to a DC3, courtesy of Brown & Root, which would rush him across the vast Texan plains for as many as 10 appearances in a single day. The evidence suggests that the Pentagon used Iraqi oil proceeds to overpay Halliburton, says Waxman. Gathered around that table just down the hall from the office Douglas Feith were ranking officials from the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as the Pentagon. WebMoreover, the enormous financial cost of the war, reaching $25 billion in 1967, diverted money from Johnsons cherished Great Society programs and began to fuel inflation. The fiercely Republican oil services company, which prospered under Eisenhower, now found many familiar doors in Washington shuttered under the Kennedy administration. "Lady Bird" Johnson, the wife of former President Lyndon B. Johnson, the nation's 36th president, died Wednesday at the age of 94. I think a womans real happiness and fulfillment is found in her home., Read: Nancy Reagans real role in the AIDS crisis. In a memo to Lyndon just five months into his presidency, Lady Bird predicts how the Vietnam war will derail his administration, and proposes a clear end-date for his The final fix may have been made by a cabal of Texas oil men and ranchers who wanted ODaniel out of Austin. Halliburton spent more than $73 million a year just to house its executives in Kuwaitthats $73 million a year billed to the Pentagon, plus a two percent profit tacked on for good measure. From the October 1980 issue: Looking at Reagan, Nancys wary nature did have its upsides, which Tumulty emphasizes. The woman who becomes president will bear the usual burdens of the office, plus an added weight: In public life, men are not the lightning rod women are. They figured he could do them less damage in Washington. Halliburton, the signature corporation of the Bush-Cheney onslaught on Iraq, didnt start its corporate life on the government dole. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, First Lady Lady Bird Johnson pose seated atop a fence at their ranch, Johnson City, Texas, 1963. True to form, Johnson never tried to conceal the role his corporate sponsors played in securing the 1948 election. LBJ got the NYA position, at the age of 29, through the intervention of Alvin Wirtz, the lead attorney for Brown & Root and a noted fixer. Instead of being administered by Douglas Feiths office at the Pentagon (as were almost all of the other Iraq contracts), the Halliburton RIO contract was pawned off on the Corps of Engineers, a remote outpost of the Pentagon known, to the extent that it is known at all, for the management of locks and dams on American rivers. In all a report prepared by the Democratic Policy Committee estimates that Halliburtons overcharges in Iraq alone exceed $1 billion. and in my book "Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight,", Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Stan Wayman/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images. In a memo to Lyndon just five months into his presidency, Lady Bird predicts how the Vietnam war will derail his administration, and proposes a clear end-date for his time in office -- fully four years before he shocked the nation with his announcement in March of 1968 that he wouldn't run for reelection. Ill never forgive Lyndons boys for turning my environmental agenda into a beautification project, she said. I had a career when I got married and very gladly gave it up, she later explained, referring to her own brief foray into acting. Why? When Cheney went to Halliburton he took along some of his old pals at the Pentagon with him, most notably Admiral Joe Lopez, a top Cheney aid during the Bush I regime. The Marshall Ford Dam deal launched LBJs career a can-do politician without parallel in American politics and it set Brown & Root on course to become one of the federal governments favorite contractors. In fact, at that precise moment Cheney enjoyed options on 43,300 shares of Halliburton stock and was pocketing $162,392 a year in deferred compensation from the company. While millions were splurged on opulent accommodations for its executives, bribes and kickbacks and scandalously inflated laundry bills, Halliburton skimped on the maintenance of its vehicles, which were transporting fuel and supplies on the dangerous desert roads from Kuwait to the US bases in Iraq. This article was published online on April 20, 2021. The Pentagons civilian leadership mothballed the explosive report for more than five months, until after the election, the inauguration, the State of the Union Address and the Defense Department budget request had all safely transpired. He won round one. For this task order alone, the Pentagon auditors estimated that Halliburton overbilled the government by at least $108.4 million. As it happened, Halliburton had a man on the inside to press its case in the person of Dillon Anderson. Johnson vowed to learn the lessons of his defeat. Using money from Lady Birds inheritance and generous infusions of cash from Brown & Root, the Johnsons bought the station, made major upgrades in its operations and squeezed federal broadcast regulators into allowing it to expand its output and change its location to a more central place on the dial. I have heard numerous times over the years Lady Bird Johnson's family were key stockholders in Bell Okay, the Pentagon learned a billion-dollar lesson the hard way, right? The congress granted to the administration of Lyndon Baines Johnson for 1965 $700 million for the expected ramping up of a direct American military role. On a trip to two New England colleges to give speeches supporting their new environmental studies programs, Lady Bird is confronted by outspoken dissent from both students and faculty who walk out of her speeches, picket her presence and circulate letters denouncing the war in Vietnam. Once again, Johnson faced a popular and reactionary governor for the Texas senate seat, vacated when Pappy ODaniel (grew bored of living in DC. Johnson also prevailed upon the Bell Helicopter Company, which would soon relocate to Texas, to loan him a chopper for his campaign. The unusually frank assessment accused Halliburton of undocumented cost overruns totaling tens of millions of dollars and generally poor performance.. So let the man use his privilege to shield and protect the woman, an old role deployed for a modern purpose. But in exchange, Halliburton executives agreed to let Brown and his colleagues run the new Brown & Root subsidiary as a quasi-independent arm of Halliburton. The NSC, with judicious prodding from Dillon Anderson, quickly sanctioned a CIA plan, devised by Kermit Roosevelt, to overthrow Mossadegh. Tumulty calls theirs an epic love story, an observation confirmed by the eyewitness accounts of many. Even the Pentagons own team of auditors, who nailed Halliburton red-handed for bilking the government for $108.4 million in overcharges for only one task order of its work in Iraq, found their report languishing in a kind of bureaucratic netherland for many months. All of this got LBJ close, but quite not close enough, to assure him of an outright victory. But forswearing potentially polarizing talk of urban renewal and land stewardship, Lady Bird spoke of beautification, though she had mixed feelings about the word. But just as their most ambitious, controversial project is about to get underway, tragedy strikes. Lyndon Johnson belonged to a generation of men who regarded sex as a perk of power. Ep. Ronnie affirmed her through flirtatious quips and love letters; her love language was acts of service, chief among them the act of protection. But you didnt hear daily drumbeats about the outrageous rip-off on FoxNews. If the current second gentleman, or a future first one, wants advice on how to do it, and how not to, he has plenty of history to consult. LBJ lived up to his obligations. Lady Bird Johnson isnt exactly an obscure figure in the life of the nation. Once again, it didnt take LBJ long to pay back his political investors with interest. She worked hard to be a fully engaged participant in Lyndon B. Johnsons career, and while his biographers have rarely emphasized her centrality, Johnson himself certainly did. Halliburton charged the US Army $85.98 for each sheet of plywood it used in construction projects during Clintons war on Serbia and its aftermath. They knew that their fortunes rode on the backs of their political benefactors and they did their best to keep them happy. She currently In 1965, Halliburton formed a consortium with the Idaho-based firm Morrison-Knudsen to manage big construction projects for the Pentagon in Vietnam. But Cheney does have the quaint habit of taking this modesty too far. Cheney, as is his natural inclination, continues to deny any involvement, direct or implicit, in the Pentagon deals that have sent billions in no bid contracts to his former company, at the very same time Halliburton continued to sweeten his bank accounts with more than $140,000 a year. In her East Wing policy shop, Lady Bird began to build a portfolio of environmental policies, working with Interior Secretary Stewart Udall. In an otherwise scripted and sober ceremony, the shuffle injected a spontaneous note as the second gentleman sought his placenot sure quite what that place was. Lyndon Johnson, an up-and-coming congressional staffer, instantly sized her up as the sort of smart, capable partner who would push him and expand his prospects. Indeed, its fair to say that the only life-support for the company during those five years was the nearly inexhaustible tide of cash coming from Halliburtons Pentagon contracts. Far from being the path toward a leaner military, the General Accounting Office pegged the LOGCAP program as an adventure in high risk government spending.. Halliburton was also back in Iran. One former Halliburton employee said that the company had inflated costs on 224 different projects in Kosovo. When Halliburton bought Dresser, it also acquired the companys enormous asbestos liability, a burden which Cheney assured company stockholders would be resolved without material effect. Its the kind of casual lie covering a metastasizing problem that would become a Cheney signature as vice president. Cheney swiftly announced two goals for the company: make it the top Pentagon contractor and greatly expand its contractual relationships with foreign governments. Then in 1999 Halliburton struck gold once again in the Balkans when Clinton went to war against Serbia over Kosovo. The Pentagon rejected 12 separate requests from Congressman Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who has spearheaded the ad hoc congressional inquiry into Halliburtons contract abuse, seeking to examine the internal audits of Halliburtons $2.5 billion contract for fuel supplies and other services to the US military and occupation government in Iraq. Sweigs writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, the Nation, the National Interest and in Brazils Folha de So Paulo. Young Claudia Alta Taylor, nicknamed Lady Bird by a nanny (or playmateexactly who isnt certain), was 5 when she lost her mother. Its the contract that keeps on giving. Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images. I always wanted someone to take care of me, someone I could take care of, she said, a yearning fulfilled when she met Ronnie, in 1949. During World War II and Korea, Brown & Root made billions Halliburton, which employed thousands of foreign-born subcontractors, even went so far as to operate segregated dining facilities and Americans Only bathrooms. But the most majestic profits, as always, were to be made during wartime and LBJ gave them a big one. In some cases, the pipes would even explode. Soon there were other summonses from the Middle East. As for Dillon Anderson, Ike soon elevated the Yale-trained lawyer from Texas to the position of National Security Adviser, where he served until 1957. Of that Julia Sweig's fourth book, "Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight" comes out March 16, 2021 from Random House. Over the next few days, precincts across the vast state counted and recounted their votes. From his early days running the Texas branch of FDRs National Youth Administration, LBJ had set his eyes on landing a seat in the US senate. The first two episodes of the eight-part series will debut on Monday, March 1. Even congress was denied a peak at the reports findings until mid-March 2005. Particularly involved in the War on Poverty, Lady Bird braved the consequences of the entire mission: The first presidential wife to act as a true surrogate, she made a whistle-stop tour of the South during the 1964 contestnot just his advocate, but his protector. He later served as a key figure on the Bush-Cheney transition team. Using a subsidiary corporation set up in Cheney time in the Cayman Islands, Halliburton had been doing business with the Mullahs of Iran since 1997, in flagrant violation of the US trade embargo. In 1995, the State Department hit Cheneys Halliburton with a $3.8 million fine for violating the trade embargo with Libya. Both had lively, unconventional mothers who supported womens suffrageand yet both girls grew up during a time when second billing (or none) was a wifes lot, even in the most collaborative marital enterprises. Astrology was a compulsion, and the attempted assassination of her husband traumatized her, understandably, leading to even more hypervigilance. Vietnams legacy may loom over Lyndon B. Johnsons family, but not as much as it loomed over the hundreds of thousands of soldiers sent to that country with Though its not a heart attack, hell still need surgery. Archival materials from: LBJ Library; JFK Library; Miller Center; U.S. National Archives; Universal Newsreel; WFAA-TV Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza; KLIF broadcast from November 22, 1963 courtesy of Cumulus Media; Andrew West audio report on June 5, 1968 courtesy of Westwood One; NBC5/KXAS Television News Collection; University of North Texas Special Collections; Jane Jacobs (Books and Authors Luncheon); WNYC, courtesy of NYC Municipal Archives. Im a foreign policy person. Waxman charged that the Pentagon withheld the damaging reports at the behest of the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, the former CEO of Halliburton. An Army Corps of Engineers email, uncovered by Time Magazine, disclosed that the initial decision to have Halliburton draft the RIO plan had been coordinated with the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. And to purchase an Austin radio station that she probably had a big hand in growing into a very successful media company. By the end of March 2005, more than 65 Halliburton employees had been killed in Iraq and more than 200 injuredthe most of any private contractor in the war zone. Evidence of the systematic accounting fraud at Halliburton during the Cheney years has now been marshaled into a class action suit by Halliburton shareholders that may even yet doom the company. In July, the Pentagon discreetly let slip that it had awarded Halliburton a fat new contract for yet more logistics work in Iraq. The Corpus Christi Naval Air Station was one of the first cost-plus contracts, a sweet deal where the government simply pays every bill the contractor submits. The company had essentially written its own job description, a scenario that would make that initial payment mushroom into the billions. Yet, even the most forgiving analysis of the Yale dropouts leadership of Halliburton must admit that the Cheney years were marked by a series of staggering false moves and financial missteps that nearly crippled the company. And that throughout it all, she was a journalist and historian in her own right, as her tapes clearly demonstrate. WebEartha Kitt confronts President Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson about the Vietnam War at a White House luncheon. 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Sure, beautifying highways mattered, but when she was in office, her real focus was on what we now call environmental justice, especially in American cities and on bringing democratic access to nature to people of color especially. He and Lady Bird fretted about money during the early years of their marriage. He rewarded him with the plum position of vice president for governmental operations-in other words, Halliburtons top lobbyist. Let me take the tough ones, she said, shouldering what was arguably the hardest, most thankless, and personally riskiest task of the campaign, Sweig writes, given the hate and outrage among many white southerners after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. The episode tracks the 14 days from the murder of the president to when the Johnsons move into the White House, days filled with tragic ceremony and heartfelt moments of solidarity between Jackie Kennedy and Lady Bird. So too was Brown & Roots. Like Lady Bird, Nancy served as a mood regulator: She knew how well Reagan could perform when confident and relaxed, and her presence improved his performance. Johnson bought them in San Antonio and southern Texas, while ODaniel, called the greatest campaigner in Texas history, purchased them throughout east Texas. In 1900 he married Minnie Lee Patillo of Johnson had it a little easier, as his symbiotic relationship with Brown & Root occurred before campaign finance laws required candidates to reveal the sources of their It was a political partnership and a powerful one at that. Soon after Eisenhowers election, Anderson, who had funneled more than $200,000 into the Eisenhower-Nixon campaign, was invited to join the administration as a consultant to the National Security Council. It turns out that there wasnt much for these managers from Houston to manage. In the end, Dressers workers paid the price. We hear Lady Birds growing sense that Bobby Kennedy will become LBJ's political rival, and RFKs bring-down-the-house performance at the Democratic Convention in the summer of 1964. La Nouvelle billed $108 for each 15-pound bag of laundry at this base, $80 a bag more than the very same company charged at another base. The companys Kosovo operations were rife with fraud. For her part, Lady Bird discovered that marriage promised her broader horizons than the teaching job she had envisioned. The money was delivered in $100 bills stuffed into grocery bags. ), Erasure vs. Sumud: How the Nakba Came to Define the Collective Palestinian Identity, Violence as an Investment Policy, Human Rights Violations as a Business Model, Politicians and the Anzac Tradition: a Story of Manipulation and Mythology, Her Name Was Nora al-Awlaki: The Real Reason Donald Trump Should Rot in Hell, Relocating UN Headquarters out of the United States, Nichole Stephens, Administrative Assistant. The Johnson family grew accustomed to the patriarchs dedication to his country, and adapted to the ever-changing, politically-charged atmosphere of Washington. Both Johnsons knew they had to seize the momentum of the national tragedy and rapidly push through a progressive agenda, which soon became known as the Great Society. Brown & Root harbored similar ambitions for their man. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight at the best online prices at eBay! It simply passed the bills on to the Pentagon and cashed its reimbursement checks, complete with the 4 percent government gratuity. Cheney pursued a company that no one else really wanted and to compound his blunder he paid an outrageous price for it. The 1948 election needed to be both bought and stolen. When someone finally leaked the audit to Waxmans office, the documents disclosed a thick wad of Halliburton billings that the Pentagon bookkeepers deemed illogical.. Lady Bird Johnson remembers the President's pain over the war. Brown & Root also understood that government contracts are a lot easier to get if you have a politician on retainer. How Lady Bird Johnson and Nancy Reagan advanced their husbands ambitionsand their own. License granted by Intellectual Properties Management, Atlanta, Georgia, as exclusive licensor of the King estate. Claudia Lady Bird Johnson (1912-2007) was an American first lady (1963-69) and the wife of Lyndon Johnson, the 36th president of the United States. A strong believer in her husbands political talents, Lady Bird used her own inheritance to fund his early campaigns, and overcame her aversion to public speaking to become one Because the offshore terminals were such easy targets for Iranian gunboats, in 1981 Saddam signed a $2.5 million contract with Halliburton to build a feeder pipeline from the terminals out into the Gulf where the crude oil could be safely sluiced into wary tankers. They witnessed the mortal pressures on what Nancy called the flesh-and-blood person. Both kept close watch on sleep, diet, and mental and emotional statesa wifely role, you could say, but is it? During World War II, Halliburton was called upon to help build the infrastructure for the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, launching a profitable relationship with the petro-kingdom that persists to this day. The pipeline won the approval of the US Undersecretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, who would later land a spot on the Halliburton board. Johnson was a sneaky, back slapping, The Halliburton audits were also concealed from a team of investigators from the United Nations, which is probing profiteering from oil contracts in Iraq. With good reason. But the unpaid behind-the-scenes partner has been with us a long time, and the deal has never been straightforwardly feminist, as two new biographies of first ladies reveal. Her motivation was not to expand her own portfolio: She wanted only to promote her husbands well-being and success, ferociously tending him and his image. It is estimated that As for LBJ, he later said that Wirtz was like a daddy to me. This prototype evolved to become the Bell Model 47---the first helicopter to receive FAA Certification. For example, Halliburton sent the Pentagon a bill for $240 million in dining hall charges for feeding 4,700 troops each day. It was a medium size construction company in Texas. Yet, none of these firms were invited to submit a bid or a plan of action. In 1997, the renewal of the LOGCAP contract was finally put up for competitive bid and, lo and behold, DynCorp snatched the golden egg of Pentagon contracts away from Halliburton.

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