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) 📕

to prepare an in-depth study of the commercial uses of nuclear power. Soon other big utilities were clamoring for a share of the action. “Most of the heads of these utilities, men like Wesley McAfee [president of the Union Electric Company of St. Louis], were well known to us,” Bechtel said in an interview. “And as they began to talk among themselves about the prospects of nuclear power, they became more and more excited by it. “7

In 19 54, seven of the most enthusiastic utilities, joined by Bechtel, formed an association called the National Power Group. Based in Chicago, the consortium carried out economic and design studies for the AEC, and evaluated different prototype reactors, determining which was best for commercial power generation.

It was an exclusive, well-connected club, but membership was costly: a minimum investment of $1 million to support research, with no guarantee of any return. Bechtel’s attorney, Bob Bridges, who attended some of the early NPG meetings, said later that “the amount took our breath away. It was,” he went on, “like a high-stakes poker game and you have one chip-and that’s a million-dollar chip. “8 Despite the worries of several of his key advisors, Bechtel anted in.

He began getting his return on his investment almost immediately.

The same year NPG was formed, PG&E contracted with Bechtel to build a 300,000-kilowatt power plant near San Luis Obispo, California, the first in the country to use evaporators to convert seawater to 104

ATOMS FOR PEACE

fresh water. At the same time, Bechtel was on the verge of closing a total of $300 million in other power-plant deals from California Edison, Utah Power & Light and utilities in Arizona and Hawaii. Quickly, Bechtel had gone from a regional, not terribly important builder of power plants to perhaps the leading contractor in the field. Steve Bechtel was also ready to extend his company’s reach overseas.

His chance came during an around-the-world trip with Union Electric’s Wesley McAfee in 1954. During a stopover in South Korea, Steve met with Tyler Wood, economic coordinator of the U.S. Foreign Operations Administration, who asked him to meet with South Korean President Syngman Rhee about problems Rhee was having with the United States, which had failed to follow through on its promise to build power plants in South Korea. “Rhee complained that the Koreans needed electricity,” recalled Bechtel executive vicepresident Jerry Komes, who would head up the Korean work and later succeed George Cooley as chief of Bechtel’s international operations. “Rhee said the U.S. had agreed to help, but all that had happened so far was that studies had been done. ”9 Steve thereupon gave Rhee an impromptu lesson on dealing with the U.S. government. As Komes described it: “Steve told him he ought to decide on one standard design, figure out how many plants he needed and then tell the U.S. government to get off its butt and get going. Rhee took him more or less literally at his word. Then he asked Steve, ‘Will you take charge of the project?’ and Steve said, ‘Sure.“‘10

The result was that before long, the Bechtel Corporation was building three coal-fired plants in Korea, the first of which was ready to come on line within two years of the company’s arrival in the country.

But when the project was nearing completion, Komes discovered that 17 miles of expensive copper cable had been stolen. Komes went right to the government. “I told them, ‘Our plant is finished … but your people have stolen our cable. Unless we can get