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

regularly by telephone with his former colleagues in San Francisco, also pressed to allow foreign partners to participate in commercial reprocessing ventures with the U.S. His enthusiasm was shared by Richard T. Kennedy, a former consultant for an energy concern that counted Bechtel among its clients, whom Reagan had named the U.S.

representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Summing up all the activities of recent months, Davis told the IAEA in April 1982, “The Reagan administration is trying to deal with the proliferation issue in a more realistic manner .. We are now seeking to build bridges in our nuclear relations with close friends and allies. Our nation also is seeking to resume its traditional and historical role as a leader in international affairs and as a stable and reliable nuclear partner.” At the time, Bechtel was eagerly trying to sell sensitive nuclear technology to Japan.

Davis himself seemed destined to go far. In June, his boss at Energy, James Edwards, told him he would soon be resigning to return to South Carolina. He added that he would recommend Davis as his successor and predicted that his nomination would be a shoe-in. Delighted, Davis returned to California for a long-overdue vacation. On June 25, he was sitting in his cabin on Lake Tahoe when the news came over the radio that George Shultz had replaced Alexander Haig as secretary of State. ”That sure ended that,” Davis mourned later.

“There was no way the administration was going to have three cabinet members from the same company. “14

Even without Davis in the cabinet, Bechtel was doing quite nicely.

When a $2.7 billion nuclear plant it was building in Mississippi ran into licensing trouble-brought on largely by the 74 percent boost in electric rates that would be required to pay for its completion-Edwards’ successor at Energy, Donald Hodel, personally flew to Mississippi to testify before the state’s Public Services Commission. As a result of Hodel’s intervention, the first ever by an Energy secretary, the plant was saved, and with it, millions for Bechtel.

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FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

Although he had recused himself from participation in particular matters involving Bechtel, George Shultz’s official actions happened to prove most helpful to the company. Within a few weeks of being sworn in as Secretary of State, Shultz persuaded Reagan and then National Security Advisor William Clark to relax their hitherto fierce opposition to-�he building of a naturalgas pipeline between Soviet Siberia and Western Europe. Though Bechtel was not involved in the Siberian project, it was quick to capitalize on the thaw in U. S.-Soviet relations Shultz had initiated. In early October, with State Department approval, two representatives from Bechtel and Occidental Petroleum chairman Armand Hammer arrived in Moscow to pitch the construction of yet another pipeline, this one to transport coal slurry. Even while that deal was still pending, Shultz himself flew off to China, a market Bechtel had unsuccessfully been trying to crack for years, with an offer to provide U.S. technology in exchange for China’s allowing U.S. companies to share in an estimated $20 billion of nuclear-plant construction. A State Department sponsored nuclear cooperation agreement enabling U.S. firms to sell nuclear technology to China cleared Congress on July 23, 1985. That same week, a Chinese delegation visited the United States for a firsthand look at American nuclear plants, as well as Bechtel’s first showplace, Hoover Dam.

Shultz’ official actions were also helpful in India, where the company had been in bad odor since the leaks at its