Friends in High Places: The Bechtel Story : The Most Secret Corporation and How It Engineered the Wo Laton Mccartney (surface ebook reader .TXT) 📖

regional partitioning and black local rule in the distant future …. The U.S. and Soviet Union will continue to attempt to dominate the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Afars and Issas) for military and political reasons …

Despite talk of Arab oil monies being used for development in black countries, no great rapport will develop between the Arabs and the Blacks in Africa.

The report then advised how to capitalize on the situation: Increased attention should be paid to cultivating U.S. aid and to cultivating sources in the Departments of Commerce, Agriculture and State and to a lesser extent with the Corps of Engineers …

Maintain a presence with African representatives in Washington D.C. and at the U.N. in New York … Have no B.D. [Bechtel Development] effort directed to the Horn of Africa … Emphasize ability in the French language in future recruitment … Maintain existing B. D. and technical efforts toward Sudan/Egypt, Algeria, Senegal and Nigeria.

Circulated to key Bechtel executives, reports like the one on Africa provided a battle plan for the company’s operations, and at least partly explained why Bechtel seemed to have such a knack for being in so many places at precisely the right time.

The arrangement was beneficial for both parties, Bechtel and CIA.

The company and The Company had prospered in their years together, and in the years to come they would prosper further. It was, as most such friendships were for Steve Bechtel, “good business.”

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II

THE SUCCESSION

C hristmas at the

acknowledge Bechtels’ was always

accomplishments

a

and special

count time-a

blessings; moment

an

to

occasion

when Steve and Laura; their son and daughter, Steve junior and Barbara, their spouses and the growing brood of grandchildren all came together, no matter how far afield the family had wandered the rest of the year.

The ritual for the holiday seldom varied. On Christmas Eve, the clan would gather at Steve and Laura’s apartment on Lakeside Drive, in the building that Dad Bechtel, flush with his first big profits as a builder, had acquired in the 1920s. In the afternoon, they would watch delightedly as the children raced to the big living room and the Christmas tree towering over the glittering piles of presents (perhaps yellow Bechtel hard hats for the boys, dolls for the girls) personally selected and wrapped by Laura. While the adults ferreted out their own gifts, and sipped at drinks served by Steve’s driver, Mike, the children -Steven junior and Betty had five, Shana, Lauren, Gary, Riley and Nonie-would slip downstairs to the grand ballroom Dad had installed, and where the glistening polished floors were wonderful for sliding.

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THE SUCCESSION

Promptly at 7:00, the squealing youngsters would be summoned upstairs, and the family, augmented by relatives and favored company executives, would sit down at the big dining-room table, which had been enlarged for the occasion by the addition of several card tables, covered with Laura’s finest linens. Steve would say grace, and the meal would begin with a shrimp cocktail. Then, one by one, the children would be called upon to stand on their chairs and sing a carol or recite a Christmas verse. As they sang, the adults would join in, following the words on the specially printed programs that Laura had placed with party favors by each plate.

Finally, with everyone ravenous, the Bechtels’ maid would bring in a turkey the size of a bass drum, basted golden brown. While Mike served Lancer’s rose-the favored wine in the household of one of California’s great family dynasties-servant girls