Friends in High Places: The Bechtel Story : The Most Secret Corporation and How It Engineered the Wo by Laton Mccartney (readict .txt) 📗

of legislation pending before Congress designed to blunt the boycott’s impact. The more moderate of these measures, an amendment to the Export Administraton Act introduced by Connecticut Democratic Senator Abraham Ribicoff, specified that any corporation which complied with the boycott could lose its foreign tax credits, its foreign tax deferrals and its export subsidies. This would significantly reduce the profitability of companies like Bechtel, and as a result, would put them at a substantial disadvantage in competing for Arab business with Japanese and European firms. Harsher still was a measure introduced in the House, which flatly prohibited U.S. companies from cooperating with the boycott. This measure, the so-called “Rosenthal Amendment,” put forth by New York Democratic Congressman Benjamin Rosenthal, would impose fines and/or prison terms on executives whose firms heeded the provisions of the boycott, and would provide for the suspension of their export licenses as well. If enacted, either of these amendments would cause severe financial hardship to Bechtel or any U.S.

Jewish resentment of the consent decree continued under the Carter administration, and under mounting pressure, Attorney General Griffin Bell significantly tightened the Justice Department’s interpretation of its terms. Bechtel responded by filing suit in June 1977, demanding to be freed from the consent decree altogether. Eighteen months later, U.S. District Judge William Ingram ruled against the company, which then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. On November 30, 1981, the High Court sustained Ingram’s decision, ruling that Justice had correctly interpreted the consent agreement. The agreement itself remains in force, though to date, Bechtel has yet to undertake any business in Israel.

193

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

company atempting to do business in the Mideast. Taken together, they effectively shut the door to virtually all significant U.S. trade with the Arabs for as long as the boycott remained in place.

Alarmed that antiboycott sentiment was getting out of hand, the administration dispatched Kissinger and Simon to Capitol Hill to cool tempers and head off passage of either measure. Simon warned darkly that if either the Ribicoff or Rosenthal amendment were passed, Arab attitudes would “harden” and, as the Treasury secretary put it, “destroy the progress we have already made.” No less ominously, Kissinger predicted that enactment of either measure would wreak incalculable harm on U.S. foreign relations and assist the Soviets in creating mischief in the area.

Bechtel, for its part, was frantic at the prospect of congressional intervention, and willing to try anything to head it off, including so unlikely a course as appealing to the ADL.

The idea of asking the ADL to intercede with Congress had originated with Shultz, who had been working closely with his former administration colleagues since the beginning of the crisis. Frustrated with the administration’s lack of success, Shultz had called ADL chairman Seymour Graubard and arranged a meeting at Graubard’s Park Avenue law offices in early July. Though nothing substantive had come of the conference-Graubard arguing that congressional action was necessary if the boycott was to be broken-the ADL leader had shown a willingness to listen further, and Shultz arranged another meeting for September I.

By then, Shultz had bolstered Bechtel’s position by hiring a Washington lobbyist named Charls Edward Walker. A former deputy secretary of the Treasury during the waning days of the Nixon administration, the strapping, Texas-born Walker was counted as one of the most effective special pleaders in the capital, with a blue-chip client list that included such corporate-giants as General Electric, U.S.

Steel and