...the sainted 60s, before the Fall into cronyism and war!
<<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1569483>
Halliburton Deals Recall Vietnam-Era Controversy
Cheney's Ties to Company Reminiscent of LBJ's Relationships
by John Burnett
All Things Considered, December 24, 2003 ยท Current criticism over
Halliburton's lucrative Iraq contracts has some historians drawing
parallels to a similar controversy involving the company during
Lyndon B. Johnson's administration.
Nearly 40 years ago, Halliburton faced almost identical charges over
its work for the U.S. government in Vietnam -- allegations of
overcharging, sweetheart contracts from the White House and war
profiteering. Back then, the company's close ties to President
Johnson became a liability. Today -- as NPR's John Burnett reports in
the last of a three-part series -- Halliburton seems to be distancing
itself from its former chief executive officer, Vice President Dick
Cheney.
The story of Halliburton's ties to the White House dates back to the
1940s, when a Texas firm called Brown & Root constructed a massive
dam project near Austin. The company's founders, Herman and George
Brown, won the contract to build Mansfield Dam thanks to the efforts
of Johnson, who was then a Texas congressman.
After Johnson took over the Oval Office, Brown & Root won contracts
for huge construction projects for the federal government. By the
mid-1960s, newspaper columnists and the Republican minority in
Congress began to suggest that the company's good luck was tied to
its sizable contributions to Johnson's political campaign.
More questions were raised when a consortium of which Brown & Root
was a part won a $380 million contract to build airports, bases,
hospitals and other facilities for the U.S. Navy in South Vietnam. By
1967, the General Accounting Office had faulted the "Vietnam
builders" -- as they were known -- for massive accounting lapses and
allowing thefts of materials.
Brown & Root also became a target for anti-war protesters: they
called the firm the embodiment of the "military-industrial complex"
and denounced it for building detention cells to hold Viet Cong
prisoners in South Vietnam.
Today, Brown & Root is called Kellogg, Brown & Root -- a Halliburton
subsidiary better known as KBR.
