Text 10968, 147 rader
Skriven 2009-04-12 11:57:00 av TIM RICHARDSON (1:123/140)
Ärende: Re: FEINSTEIN AND MILCON
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On 04-12-09, DAVE DRUM said to DAN CEPPA:


-=> Dan Ceppa wrote to TIM RICHARDSON <=-


DC>Were those contracts also no-bid?  Was Humphrey a former CEO of KBR
DC>or Halliburton?


TR> Lady Bird Johnson was the majority stock holder in Kellog Brown &
TR> Root. Brown & Root, under the Johnson administration became the largest
TR> construction company in America.


DC> The question still remains:  Were they no-bid contracts?


News & Opinion: The Candidate From Brown and Root (Austin Chronicle . 08-28-
00)


The Candidate From Brown and Root


Bush Doesn't Know Dick

By Robert Bryce


AUGUST 28, 2000:  Herman Brown's huge bet on the Mansfield Dam just
keeps paying off. It made Brown a rich man. It secured the future of his
company. And it led to other big projects that provided the funds to
elect Lyndon Johnson to the U.S. Senate in 1948 and the White House years
later.


Today, 63 years after Johnson helped secure federal funding for the dam,
it appears that the modern descendent of George Brown's Brown & Root may
once again be propelling a Texas politico toward the White House. Call
it fate, dumb luck, or clever politics. Whatever it is, Brown & Root,
arguably the most famous construction company in Texas, is once again
near the center of a presidential race. And the company's political
connections are once again paying big dividends.


Brown & Root is a subsidiary of the Halliburton Company, the Dallas-
based oil services conglomerate that until July 25 employed Dick Cheney as
chairman of its executive board and CEO. Like LBJ before him, Cheney has
used his association with Halliburton and Brown & Root to enrich himself
and gain political power. Last week, Halliburton announced that it was
giving Cheney a retirement package worth more than $33.7 million. That
comes on top of more than $10 million Cheney has earned in salary,
bonuses, and stock options at Halliburton since 1995. In return for his
pay, Cheney has helped the company attract government contracts worth
hundreds of millions of dollars.


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 funding. Indeed, by Johnson's own admission,
according to his biographer Ronnie Dugger, much of the money he got from
Brown & Root came in cash. In return, Johnson steered lucrative federal
contracts to the company. Those contracts helped Brown & Root become a
global construction powerhouse that today employs 20,000 people and
operates in more than 100 countries.


"It was a totally corrupt relationship and it benefited both of them
enormously," says Dugger, the author of The Politician: The Life and
Times of Lyndon Johnson. "Brown & Root got rich, and Johnson got power and
riches." Without Brown & Root's money, Johnson wouldn't have won (or
rather, been able to steal) the 1948 race for U.S. Senate. "That was the
turning point. He wouldn't have been in the running without Brown &
Root's money and airplanes. And the 1948 election allowed Lyndon to become
president," said Dugger, who is currently running for the Green Party's
nomination for the U.S. Senate in New York.


Cheney's business dealings on behalf of Halliburton and Brown & Root
have
largely occurred in the public eye and have been scrutinized by the
media.
But Cheney's dealings are just as questionable as those undertaken by
LBJ.
Indeed, in order to increase revenues for the company, Cheney has
lobbied
against sanctions that are considered part of America's strategic
interests. For instance, the man who is now the Republican candidate for
the vice presidency has lobbied against sanctions against Iran -- which
could keep Halliburton from selling more products and services to that
country. Meanwhile, Brown & Root has performed hundreds of millions of
dollars worth of work for Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, long
suspected
of sponsoring terrorism directed at the United States.


Dam in Limbo


But before discussing that, a bit of history on Brown & Root's dam work.


It was 1937, and the Mansfield Dam project (then called the Marshall
Ford dam) was in limbo. Brown & Root, which had been a small Belton-based
road-building company, was working on the dam even though Congress had
not approved the $10 million project. Even worse, the project was illegal
because the Bureau of Reclamation, which was overseeing the project,
didn't own the land on which the dam was being built -- a minor fact
that under federal law should have prevented the project from getting under
way. But Herman Brown pressed on. He had received $5 million and was
betting that he could get the federal approval and funding needed to
finish the project. But he needed Johnson -- then a newly elected
Congressman -- to get it. Johnson delivered. In July of 1937, with the
backing of President Franklin Roosevelt, who made it clear he was doing
it for "Congressman Johnson," the authorization and funding was approved.


That funding was the key to Brown & Root's future. In his book on LBJ,
Path to Power, Johnson biographer Robert Caro reports that Herman Brown
and his brother George made "an overall profit on the dam of $1.5
million, an amount double all the profit they had made in twenty previous
years in the construction business."


But Herman Brown wasn't finished. He wanted another $17 million to make
the dam higher by another 78 feet to make it function better for flood
control. The Lower Colorado River Authority, which was to operate the
dam, didn't have the money. So once again, Johnson went to work. Of course,
he got the money, a move that resulted in even more profit for the Browns.
"Out of the subsequent contracts for the dam," writes Caro, "they piled,
upon that first million, million upon million more. The base for a huge
financial empire was being created in that deserted Texas gorge."
(In retrospect, building the dam higher was a wise choice. During the
floods of 1991, Lake Travis crested at 710 feet, just four feet below
the level of the spillway. Without the extra height demanded by the Browns,
or another dam, parts of Austin would likely have been inundated.)


The Mansfield project led to dozens of others. It also made the Browns
believe in Johnson. "Herman Brown let Johnson know that he would not
have to worry about finances in this campaign -- that the money would be
there, as much as was needed, when it was needed," writes Caro.

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