Friends in High Places: The Bechtel Story : The Most Secret Corporation and How It Engineered the Wo by Laton Mccartney (books to read to be successful TXT) 📕

demise, when, in an effort to head off a threatened Haig trip to Israel to demonstrate U. S. support, he recommended to the State Department the appointment of retired diplomat Philip Habib as a special presidential emissary. The fact that Habib, not Haig, went to Israel, was among the numerous straws that, for Haig, finally broke the camel’s back. Shultz was gratified on two counts: not only did he win the government post he sought, but Philip Habib was, then as now, a consultant to Bechtel.

221

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

former president told reporters. “Secretary Shultz will carry on. He will have his differences from Haig’s policy, perhaps a shade of difference in the Middle East, although not nearly as great as some have indicated.

But he’s going to carry on and be a very effective secretary of State. If there has been any sniping or guerrilla warfare against the secretary of State, as Secretary Haig has indicated, let me tell you, you’re not going to see anything publicly about it from Secretary Shultz. He will not tolerate it. That will stop.”

Not sd sanguine over Shultz’ appointment was Steve Bechtel, Jr. He had been at the company’s Alaska fishing camp when Reagan made the call to London, and though Shultz had frantically tried to reach him, Steve had been informed only when he heard news of Shultz’ appointment on the radio. “I was shocked,” Bechtel said later. “I just didn’t think it would happen. [But] I knew George well enough that I felt that if the president really wanted him, put the arm on him, George would go.”4

Bechtel hurried back to San Francisco. En route, he drafted the outline of a corporate reorganization plan he would present to an emergency meeting of the Bechtel executive committee he had called for that weekend. The plan, dubbed Management Memo Vol. 14, No.

7, called for Steve junior to reassume the responsibilities of Bechtel group president while continuing as chairman, with Shultz’ ancillary responsibilities to be divided among other Bechtel executives. “I am very confident that everyone will cooperate in helping make these transitions work as smoothly as possible,” Steve junior wrote in a note accompanying his memo. “There can be no question that we will personally feel George’s loss to the company. But Bechtel is a strong organization, financially very sound and well-positioned in the industries we serve. I look forward to our future with great optimism.”

While Bechtel was reorganizing itself, Shultz was being asked to sort out some matters of his own. In confirmation hearings before the Foreign Relations Committee, senator after senator bored in on Bechtel’s various dealings and the role Shultz had played in them. Republican Larry Pressler of South Dakota, who pronounced himself worried that “there are too many people from Bechtel in this administration,”5

pressed Shultz for details of Bechtel’s lobbying efforts to sell AWACS

aircraft to Saudi Arabia, where the company had a total of $40 billion in contracts. He also questioned how Shultz could deal objectively Under George Shultz’ directions, Bechtel’s government-relations department had

mounted an aggressive lobbying campaign to secure the controversial $8. 5 billion 222

POWERHOUSE

with the issue of nuclear nonproliferation, given Bechtel’s extensive involvement in building nuclear power plants and waste-disposal facilities around the world. A testy Shultz shot back: “If I’m not qualified to take part in discussions of nuclear nonproliferation, then I’m not qualified to be secretary of State and you want somebody else in the job. “6

Taking up where Pressler had left off, Maryland Democrat P<ml Sarbanes asked Shultz to explain Bechtel’s adherence