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

entitled “Amazing Greed”), bluntly direct ‘in approach (“There’s no bullshit about him,” said one of the many whose arms he tried to twist.

“He comes right to the point.”) Walker, who held a doctorate in economics and had taught at the Wharton Business School, had been one of the prime movers in creating the Business Roundtable, an association of business leaders which included Steve Bechtel, Jr., and George Shultz among its members and was even more powerful than the old Business Council. His contacts with the Roundtable members, a 194

THE ARAB BOYCOTT

number of whom he enlisted in Bechtel’s cause, along with those on the Hill, made him, in the estimation of The New York Times, the strongest lobbying ally a businessman could have.

On September 1, Walker and Shultz, accompanied by Du Pont chairman and Business Roundtable member Irving Shapiro and San Francisco real estate magnate Walter Shorenstein, Bechtel’s partner in a number of real estate ventures, traveled to New York to meet with Graubard, who was accompanied by several friends of his own, among them the ADL’s president, Benjamin R. Epstein, and its general counsel, Arnold Forster. Graubard opened the meeting by repeating what he had told Shultz in July-notably, that while the ADL did not endorse the attempt by Congress to block the boycott, neither would it do anything to oppose it. Shultz followed by saying that thanks largely to Simon’s behind-the-scenes efforts, some of the heat engendered by the boycott issue appeared to be dissipating. From his recent travels in the Middle East, Shultz added, it seemed that the Arabs were softening as well, especially in regard to those provisions of the boycott which barred U.S. firms from employing Jews in Arab lands. “Besides,”

Shultz added, “Jews assigned to these places by Bechtel mostly don’t want to go there anyway. “17 In light of this progress, Shultz urged Graubard to use the ADL’s influence to tone down, if not eliminate altogether, the punitive provisions of the riders attached to the Export Administration Act, whose renewal was then before Congress. If the legislation passed with the antiboycott language intact, Shultz warned, it could “well cause a major confrontation between the Saudis and other Arab countries and their American suppliers. “18 The Saudis didn’t need the United States, Shultz went on, and, “while they like us,” they might, if pushed by Congress, turn to the Japanese and Europeans for services and facilities the United States was currently providing. The ADL, and American Jews generally, Shultz concluded, should be “deeply concerned” about that possibility and “do what is necessary to head it off. “19

Picking up from what Shultz had said, Walker conceded to Graubard that it was “very late in the day”20 for the ADL to do anything.

Nonetheless, he emphasized, the effort was necessary, and had to be made soon, since Congress would shortly be voting on the bill prior to its scheduled adjournment September 30.

Despite Shultz and Walker’s entreaties, and their endorsement by Shapiro and Shorenstein, Graubard remained unmoved. The ADL, he said, was not budging.

Walker shrugged; then, in his Texas drawl, he offered offhandedly, 195

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

“Well, the bill’s not going to get through Congress anyway. At least, not in its present form it isn’t. “21

“What exactly do you mean, the bill won’t