Tumulty calls theirs an epic love story, an observation confirmed by the eyewitness accounts of many. Finally, he was able to use the war to further his political career and gain more control over the government. For this task order alone, the Pentagon auditors estimated that Halliburton overbilled the government by at least $108.4 million. Two years later, Halliburton won the 5-year renewal of this deal, valued at $180 million. Sweig posits that she coped with the insecurity by making herself increasingly indispensable. LBJ struggled with depressionLady Bird called it the Valley of the Black Pig, quoting Yeatsand more so as the Vietnam War took an immense psychological toll. In all a report prepared by the Democratic Policy Committee estimates that Halliburtons overcharges in Iraq alone exceed $1 billion. 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. But within a year, the cost had soared to more than $45 million, with Brown & Root pocketing more than $2.4 million in profits. When his own contract auditors objected, Strock sought to silence them by saying he had determined that the compelling emergency in Iraq dictated swift and unilateral action. Lady Bird Johnson was a first lady -- but her audio diaries reveal so much more. But you didnt hear daily drumbeats about the outrageous rip-off on FoxNews. Brown & Root decided there was no turning back. Halliburton, which employed thousands of foreign-born subcontractors, even went so far as to operate segregated dining facilities and Americans Only bathrooms. It is startling to realize that, for the 14 months from November 1963 to January 1965, Lady Bird Johnson effectively was the vice president. And so it came to pass. But I went ahead and talked about wildflowers so as not to scare anybody, because I knew if the people came to love wildflowers theyd have to eventually care about the land that grew em., From the July 1973 issue: The last days of the president. 3: RenewalFresh from landslide victory in the 1964 election, Lyndon and Lady Bird shuttle back and forth between Washington, DC and Texas as they make plans for their first full term in office. So too was Brown & Roots. As our vision of high-level political partnership gets a reboot (the first-ever first lady whos not giving up her career, the first-ever second gentleman), it seems a good time to recall just how undefined the role of unelected spouse has been. Speaking of Halliburtons logistics work for the Pentagon in the Balkans, Cheney said, the first person to greet our soldiers as they arrive and the last one to wave good-bye is one our employees. Halliburton: the Alpha and Omega of Pentagon contractors. On Monday, May 16, 1966, John Steinbeck and his 19 year-old son, John, visited President Lyndon Johnson in the Oval Office of the White House. The company that had prospered through the Great Depression thanks to federal dam projects was poised to make a killing from World War II, with most of the deal coming courtesy of the US Navy and its congressional overlord LBJ and the powerful congressman from Houston, Albert Thomas. With 97 per cent of the votes counted, Johnson led the race and seemed assured of victory. The company made a cool $500 million from the deal. But this rate was nearly three times the 97 cents per gallon that the Iraqi Oil State Marketing Organization was paying to buy oil from Jordan and Turkey. In the fall of 2000, Halliburton won a $300 million contract to build a massive prison at Guatanamo Bay in Cuba. As the polls closed in the Texas senate race of 1948, the margin was razor thin, with Coke Stevenson running slightly ahead of LBJ. Often these bills exceeded the true costs of the projects by 300 or even 400 percentwith Halliburton snagging a built-in profit from the bribe-bloated contracts. She and Nancys feckless biological father had effectively separated before their daughter was born; in early girlhood, Nancy was lodged with an aunt and uncle while her mother sought gigs. These scams didnt lead to an indictment of Halliburton executives, but the SEC did ding the company with a $7.5 million fine for its deviant accounting practicesa slap on the wrist, to be sure, but a black eye for the moral hypocrite Dick Cheney. When Eartha Kitt Disrupted the Ladies Who Lunch | The New Yorker WebLyndon and Lady Bird Johnson and their connections to Bell Helicopter? If I asked, say, a few hundred people anywhere over 25 or 30 years old, its a good bet theyd know a few things. Nancy longed for a more conventional home life. ABC News will kick off Womens History Month with its new podcast "In Plain Sight," co-produced with Best Case Studios and hosted by author Julia Sweig. LBJ lived up to his obligations. Though its not a heart attack, hell still need surgery. How Lady Bird Johnson and Nancy Reagan advanced their husbands ambitionsand their own. While the US oil companies were later given the boot by the Saudi royal family, Halliburton continued to prosper, constructing pipelines, refineries and oil terminals. In February 2005, the State Department finally weighed in with a damning report on Halliburtons work to rehabilitate the oil fields in southern Iraq. TSHA | Taylor, Thomas Jefferson II The Candidate from Brown and Root - The Texas Observer He helped me get out. Kennedy was the first president to approve the sale of They also followed a familiar contour: the contracts were awarded without competitive bidding and on a cost-plus basis with a guaranteed profit built-in. Lyndon B. Johnson: Foreign Affairs | Miller Center That she was a keen political strategist -- I think the one Lyndon Johnson trusted and confided in most. Black was a New Dealer elevated to the high bench by FDR. Even here Halliburton benefited. Someday, a first gentleman will be called upon to match that care and dedication. At the time of the merger, Brown & Root had just been handed one of its biggest federal contracts, the multi-billion dollar deal to build NASAs Manned Space Center outside Houston-a complex that would later be renamed the Johnson Space Center. Fifty-two years later, Halliburton offered its corporate jets for use by George Bush and his campaign team during the 2000 campaign and subsequent tumultuous Florida recount. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, First Lady Lady Bird Johnson pose seated atop a fence at their ranch, Johnson City, Texas, 1963. In 1995, Halliburton hired Dick Cheney as its CEO. Lady Bird decides to use the opportunity to launch a full PR blitz to take her message to America. 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. Audio diaries reveal Lady Bird Johnson's unseen influence in Cheney also approved a legally dubious scheme to set up dozens of offshore shell corporations designed to exploit Enron-style accounting hijinks in order to make Halliburtons bottom line seem more robust than it really was. As The Washington Posts White House correspondent during the Reagan years, Lou Cannon, notes in a biography of the president, for all her talent for turmoil, Nancy became a force for peace within the White House., Tumulty writes about the power that comes with intimacythe influence of the companion who is there in moments public and private, high and lowand some of the most arresting scenes in both books capture drama unfolding in pajamas, or not even. WebJacqueline did not remain first lady. In the run up to the 64 election, Lady Bird makes a Whistle Stop tour of the South her home turf to try to keep Southern Democrats from defecting over Civil Rights. Lady Bird feels increasing under siege, even as she vows not to retreat into a bubble in the White House. But over the next five years, Brown Shipbuilding, a huge operation on the Houston Ship Channel, would build 355 ships for the Navy, specializing in sub chasers and escorts for destroyers. Once again, Johnson faced a popular and reactionary governor for the Texas senate seat, vacated when Pappy ODaniel (grew bored of living in DC. Cheney didnt have much experience in the corporate world before becoming Halliburtons chieftain and his tenure there shows it. The meeting was chaired by Lt. General Carl Strock, a ranking official at the US Army Corps of Engineers. WebLyndon Johnson. In the fall of 1979, the Iranian revolution led to the expulsion of Halliburton from the lucrative sinecure it had enjoyed under the Shahs dictatorship. 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. 1: Fourteen DaysIn her first-ever diary entry, recorded eight days after President John F. Kennedy is assassinated, Lady Bird presents a dramatic, cinematically detailed moment-by-moment account of those terrible hours in Dallas, and the days that follow. Yet, instead of firing of Cheney for this calamitous mistake, the Halliburton board, now ornamented by the rotund figure of former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, awarded its chieftain a $1.5 million bonus for his decisive role in the doomed acquisition. This time the Iraq government contracted with the Houston firm to build a long oil pipeline, that would skirt Iranian bombs, running from Basra to Yanbu on the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia. Luci Johnsons wedding in Washington, DC becomes the setting of dramatic anti-war protests, and Lady Bird herself is the target of a bomb threat. The Making of Halliburton - CounterPunch.org Unlike her conflict-averse husband, she played the ruthless enforcer, conducting feuds and engineering firings. The Brown & Root Company shared Halliburtons antipathy toward organized labor, but realized early on that there was a fortune to be made through outsourced government work. The GAO disclosed that Halliburton could not account for the whereabouts of approximately $120 million worth of materials which had been shipped from Vietnam to the United States.. Nearly every other venture racked up huge levels of debt and legal liabilities. Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson and their connections to Okay, the Pentagon learned a billion-dollar lesson the hard way, right? The damning investigation by the Defense Contract Audit Agency was completed in early October of 2004 and shipped up the line to Pentagons dark triumverate, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld. But no. Halliburton, the signature corporation of the Bush-Cheney onslaught on Iraq, didnt start its corporate life on the government dole. The evidence suggests that the Pentagon used Iraqi oil proceeds to overpay Halliburton, says Waxman. (Who else was going to take care of her? 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. Tumulty makes the case that over the course of Ronalds political career, Nancy grew to understand her power. Wielding their clout, the two first ladies could hardly be a greater study in contrastseven as they shared a priority: vigilantly protecting their spouse above all, but also their own access and influence. Then more ballots mysteriously materialized, and ODaniel claimed victory by 1,311 votes. Halliburtons solution, which he unveiled in the oil town of Burkburnett, Texas, was to seal the well-pipes in a sheath of concrete, protecting the pipes from corrosion and precious loads of crude from contamination. True to form, Johnson never tried to conceal the role his corporate sponsors played in securing the 1948 election. This article was published online on April 20, 2021. Some staffers, like James Baker, understood her influence and made a point of getting along. In southern Iraq, much of Halliburtons logistics work ended up in the hands of a Kuwaiti firm called La Nouvelle, which handled meals, sanitation facilities and laundry. Nancys mother, Edie Davis, was a stage actor whose glamorous social life included Spencer Tracy and Mary Martin. Im a foreign policy person. They began construction on the dam before getting any federal funds and before the feds had actually acquired the land from the state of Texas. But Cheney does have the quaint habit of taking this modesty too far. In 1973, Halliburton won a $120 million contract to build Iraqs two mammoth oil terminals in the Persian Gulf off the coast from Umm Qasr. The big prize in the 1950s was Iran, where Halliburton enjoyed tens of millions in contracts which were suddenly placed in jeopardy with election of Mohammed Mossadegh, who had campaigned on a pledge to nationalize Irans enormous oil reserves. Halliburton Deals Recall Vietnam-Era Controversy : NPR Of course, this decision had been set in motion much earlier and by figures far loftier in the power hierarchy of the Bush administration than lowly Lt. General Strock from the bureaucratic outback of the Corps of Engineers. Of course, Cheney didnt wrest these deals from the feds alone. 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? 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. Lynda was born on March 19, 1944 in Washington, D.C. Julia Sweig is co-executive producer, writer and host of the project. 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. In the spring of that year, young LBJ met several times with Herman Brown, vowing to make congressional approval of the dam project his top priority. 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. And that although she took personal risks to campaign in the south for civil rights, she couldnt quite figure out what to make of Black protests in American cities or dissent against the war. Although she never once called herself a feminist, in the doing, her values aligned squarely with the more outspoken feminists of the time. Im sort of an archive geek, so when I heard that Lady Bird had recorded her own White House tapes, the idea of getting to know her and her story didnt sound so far-fetched. Altanmia charged Halliburton a hefty $2.65 per gallon, roughly the price charged at the pump in Washington, D.C. Letter from President Johnson to John Steinbeck Two years later Saddam hired Halliburton once again. In fact, the company patriarch, Erle P. Red Halliburton, despised the federal government. Johnson But the most majestic profits, as always, were to be made during wartime and LBJ gave them a big one. Vietnam war With the help of his pals Sam Rayburn and Senator Robert Kerr, Johnson, a freshman senator, got himself appointed chairman of the committee overseeing the Federal Power Commission. 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. And on her return to Washington, a sex scandal involving Lyndons closest aide presents an October surprise that could easily upend the election. 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! Halliburton acquired Dresser for $7.7 billion, which proved to be at least 16 percent more than the companys actual value. In her East Wing policy shop, Lady Bird began to build a portfolio of environmental policies, working with Interior Secretary Stewart Udall. 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. One night, sitting in her private office in the White House family quarters, and reflecting on one of those shallow, glowing books about her written at the time, Lady Bird sighed and recorded, Sometime, somewhere, I hope someone will write one with more depth about Lyndon and me., Ep. They owned a few congressmen, but an obedient senator was the key to a higher order of riches. The biggest project by far was its $220 million contract to build the mammoth Air Force Base at Phan Rang, which Halliburton constructed on top of some the most beautiful Cham temple complexes in Vietnam. 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. Lyndon B. Johnson - Election and the Vietnam War | Britannica 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. The unusually frank assessment accused Halliburton of undocumented cost overruns totaling tens of millions of dollars and generally poor performance.. For one thing, those big terminals, the Mina al-Bakr and the Khor al-Amaya were inviting targets. But the company had an ace in the hole in the shape of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the lumbering former schoolteacher who was vying to replace the departed Buchanan. For the first time, the Pentagon began to privatize construction and logistics operations during wartime in the war zone. The most peculiar billing found in this limited series of transactions was a $27.5 million charge for shipping cooking gas and heating fuel that the Pentagon auditors valued at $82,000. Bush administration to a develop a scheme for outsourcing to private corporations much of the logistics and construction work previously handled by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Anderson was a partner in the Houston law firm of Baker Botts, the family firm of James A. Baker, III, which had represented Halliburton for many years. And then there was NR v Donald Regan, the White House chief of staff she managed to oust after much mutual combat. A GAO investigation also revealed that Halliburton was billing the Pentagon for cleaning offices in US bases the Balkans four times a day. But what I am certain no one knows is that she was arguably the most influential member of the Johnson administration. Halliburton continues to garner millions from its drilling technology, from Saudi Arabia to the Amazonian rainforest. Brown sluiced cash into LBJs campaign and he sailed to victory in a special election on May 13, 1937. He shed much of his New Dealer image and reemerged as a Southern populist, touting his votes against an anti-lynching bill, against Trumans bill to outlaw the poll tax, and for the union-busting Taft-Hartley Act. In 1948 it was also this same DC-3 that made emergency flights to Austin and Dallas in search of cash from the accounts of Brown & Root. All of this got LBJ close, but quite not close enough, to assure him of an outright victory. The Johnson family grew accustomed to the patriarchs dedication to his country, and adapted to the ever-changing, politically-charged atmosphere of Washington. Lady Bird Johnson: 1912 2007 Lady Bird was a major stock holder of Brown &Root which was bought out by and became Haliburton in which Lady Bird held major interest to this day in. The centerpiece of this enterprise was the Marshall Ford Dam outside Austin and the company that had won the contract to build the dam was none other than Brown & Root.

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