The World Order
Chapter 6 - The Bechtel Complex - 2
by Eustace Mullins

The Bechtels were now counted among the most influential wheeler-dealers in Washington. Stephen Sr. and Jr. and John McCone were key members of the small group of millionaires who regularly played golf with President Eisenhower and Arthur Godfrey at the mecca of all lobbyists, Washington's Burning Tree Country Club. When George Pratt Shultz became a Washington official, he regularly played golf with Stephen Bechtel Jr. at Burning Tree, which led to his being named president of Bechtel Group.

The Bechtels had come a long way from the anxious days of 1931, when a small sand and gravel contractor was asked to put up $8 million working capital for the Boulder Dam job. They did manage to come up with $5 million, financed by the Schroder-Rockefeller group. Their later success has been due principally to their connection with the international financiers.

Bechtel had been rescued in its time of need by J. Henry Schroder and Avery Rockefeller. John Lowery Simpson, vice president of J. Henry Schroder, was placed on Bethtel's board as chairman of its finance committee, in total charge of the company's financial arrangements. Huge government contracts followed this connection as naturally as night follows day.

The New York Times announced the debut of Schroder-Rockefeller on July 9, 1936, with Avery Rockefeller, son of Percy, and godson of William, allied in a new holding company. Avery's grandfather was James Stillman, who built the National City Bank to a giant concern. Avery Rockefeller held 42% of the stock in Schroder-Rockefeller;  Baron Bruno von Schroder of London and Baron Kurt von ScFtroder of Cologne (who was Hitler's personal banker) held 47%.

On June 3, 1954, the New York Times announced that Stephen Bechtel, chmn of Bechtel Corp. had become partner of J.P. Morgan Co. In 1955, Fortune reported that as Under Secretary of State, C. Douglas Dillon had arranged important contracts for Bechtel with the Saudi Arabian government, culminating in the present $135 billion Jubail operation.

Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, was also a director of Schroder Co. The vice president of Bechtel, Saudi Arabian operations, C. Stribling Snodgrass, also ran a CIA firm called LSG Associates. Bechtel built the 1100 mile long Trans Arabia Pipeline for $100 million, the largest contract let to that time. A worldwide construction firm, with entree to many countries, can also be a conduit for intelligence agents. In 1980, Bechtel was building apartments in Saudi Arabia, a hydropower complex in Quebec, a coal fueled power project in Utah, an oil refinery in Indonesia, a $500 million tourist resort in Malaysia, a copper and gold mine in Paint, New Guinea, and a $250 million palace for the Sultan of Brunei. It was an ideal operation for the CIA, even without the ubiquitous Schroder connection.

Bechtel was awarded the billion dollar contract for cleaning up the situation at Three Mile Island. In 1979, about halt of its business derived from nuclear power activity, despite many complaints about its faulty construction in this field. Bechtel made a $14 million settlement of complaints from Consumers Power Co. that the Palisades nuclear plant leaked radioactive water into the steam generating system. At Bechtel's Midland, Mich. nuclear power station, the reinforcing bar joints were found to be defective. Bechtel settled out of court with Portland General Electric, which had charged Bechtel with "negligent design" in its Trojan nuclear power plant at Rainier, Oregan. Nevertheless, when Brown & Root was removed from construction at South Texas Nuclear Project, Bechtel took over. A commentator noted at that time, "Bechtel is politically untouchable. So anybody who gets Bechtel on its side is assured of protection."

In January, 1975, Fortune pointed out that Bechtel had never been in the red for a single year, because "Its engineering projects are invariably financed by its clients."  These clients are usually governments, a lesson which may have been learned from the Rothschilds. The Export Import Bank frequently steps in and offers to finance the huge projects proposed by Bechtel. The American taxpayer finances many Bechtel projects through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. It could be said that every American has a stake in Bechtel. The president of Export Import Bank, William H. Draper III, resides at Palo Alto, California home address of the Hoover Institution and Hewlett-Packard Co., and Stanford University, the present headquarters of the Reagan-Bechtel complex. Draper's father, William H. Draper Jr. began his career with National City Bank in 1919, went to Bankers Trust as treasurer, and joined Dillon Read in 1927, later becoming president. In 1940 he was named Presidential Adviser ,on Selective Service. In 1944, he was in charge of contract termination for the War Dept. From 1945 to 1946, he was dictator of Germany's economy, chief of the economic division of the Four Power Economic Directorate, Allied Military Government. He formulated the Draper Plan to revive German industry. In 1947, he was military adviser to the Secretary of State at the Moscow Conference. James V. Forrestal, his partner at Dillon, Read, named him Under Secretary of the Army in 1947. From 1997 to 1949, Draper directed the occupation of Japan, as MacArthur's superior. He allowed MacArthur to be portrayed as the absolute ruler of Japan, but Draper issued all the directives. In 1952 and 1953, Draper was U.S. representative to NATO with the rank of Ambassador. He then became chmn of Combustion Engineering Systems Worldwide, a $3.15 billion company. He was also director of the George Putnam Fund of Boston which handles Harvard's hugh endowment, Freeport Minerals, Chubb Corp. and Chase International Investment. He later became chmn of Planned Parenthood, consultant to the UN Fund for Population Control, and author of the Draper Plan for population control.

Bechtel now has a fulltime Washington Lobbyist, Parker Hart; a foundation, incorporated in 1953 with $7 million (the Bechtel Foundation has been called a "rightwing foundation" by Mother Jones, although it seems to have no particular loyalties). Stephen Jr. also has a foundation with;  $2 million assets. Shultz is president of these foundations.

Time, Oct. 4, 1954 noted that "Stephen Bechtel went to Korea for the American-Korea Foundation. While there, he paid a courtesy call on Coordinator C. Tyler Wood of the Foreign Operations Administration;  Wood persuaded Bechtel to build three thermonuclear plants in Korea for $34 million, the largest FOA contract ever issued in Korea."  Even when occupied with good works, bread cast upon the waters is returned.

On April 2, 1974, the Washington Post reviewed a Mother Jones article which stated that a Bechtel representative, Yoon Sik Cho, a Korean-American with connections reaching to the Korean Presidency, had bribed Korean officials to win four separate billion dollar projects between 1978 and 1980. The Post said, "The FBI, Justice Dept. and IRS are investigating allegations that the Bechtel Corp., a large San Francisco conglomerate, used a paid consultant to bribe South Korean officials between 1978 and 1980 to obtain nuclear power plant construction projects in violation of the 1977 Corrupt Practices Act, sources said yesterday." Although the Post sent millions investigating Watergate, it was content to rely on Mother Jones' slender resources for this investigation. The Post continued, "The magazines quoted an FBI informant as saying ‘it was common knowledge among lawyers at Bechtel that anyone who didn't keep Weinberger informed would be on the street the next day". The article cited a source close to Weinberger as saying "Cap only wanted to know what it was safe to know."  The article also pointed out that Shultz was the executive sponsor for internal auditing during the time in question. It said two audits were cancelled at Bechtel in 1980 ‘at the insistence of Cho;  those audits would have revealed the large undocumented cash advances being paid to Cho'."  At the time of the bribery, Secretary of State Shultz was president of Bechtel, and Secretary of Defense Weinberger was vice president and general counsel of Bechtel. In the ensuing months, the Post and the FBI have been content to ignore the matter, four billion dollar contracts being "small change" in Washington.

Newsweek noted July 12, 1982 that Kenneth Davis, vice president of Bechtel in charge of nuclear plant construction since 1979, had joined Reagan's administration as deputy secretary of Energy involving nuclear production, becoming the fifth member of Bechtel to join Reagan's team. Most reporters would be up in arms if five executives of General Motors joined a White House team. Like most family concerns, Bechtel has a paternal attitude towards its employees. Fortune noted it paid 100% bonuses in good years. Newsweek quoted a former employee, March 18, 1968, "They are all robots there. They tend to pigeonhole you for years and years."  Fortune noted that Stephen Bechtel Sr. had stepped down as head of the firm in 1961 at the age of 60, turning the presidency over to Stephen Jr. "Steve, Ken, and Jr. own one-half of the shares of the common stock, and most of the preferred. The corporation has first option on stock when one leaves or dies."  Fortune usually writes about Bechtel with reverence, but did mention "occasionally dissatisfied customers" and bravely concluded, "A world like that can hardly do without a company like Bechtel."

In April, 1968, Bechtel dedicated a new bronze 23 story building in San Francisco. The Feb., 1951 Fortune had run a full page color portrait of Stephen Bechtel Sr., citing some of the firm's recent achievements, a 506 mile pipeline for Pacific Gas & Electric, a $25 million plant for Lever in Los Angeles, and others. In Nov. 1952, Bechtel proposed a 2500 mile pipeline from the Arctic to Paris, promising to deliver oil at 25¢ per 1000 cu ft, much cheaper than coal. Nothing came of this proposal, but Bechtel, after acquiring Peabody Coal Co. the nation's largest, in a consortium with Newmont Mining for $1.2 billion Bechtel joined with Lehman Bros. Energy Transport System to build 70% of the world's coal slurry lines. Peabody had been founded by Francis Stuyvesant Peabody, of the famed philanthropic family which originated the American foundation network to control the American people.

Bechtel now began frenetic lobbying to build coal slurry lines. An intensive campaign in Virginia failed in 1983, because of the countervailing power of the Norfolk & Western Railroad, 40% of whose revenues come from hauling coal. The legislators were bemused by the amount of money spent on the coal slurry bill, but never knew it was a Bechtel lobbying operation. Steven D. White, president of Bechtel Investments, said in a letter to Forbes, April 9, 1984, "Bechtel remains strongly committed to the concept of coal slurry pipelines and in particular to the ETSI coal slurry pipeline."  In 1982, Bechtel offered to build a coal slurry line in Russia, but perhaps because of its well known CIA connection, the offer was ignored. The UPI reported from Houston Aug. 2, 1984 that a $3 billion proposal for a slurry line from Wyoming to the Gulf Coast had been defeated.

Michael Berryhill noted in Harpers, Dec. 1983, that Dallas was planning an $8.3 billion rail network. "The Bechtel Corp., the huge and secretive San Francisco firm with strong ties to the Republican Party, prepared the feasibility study, and will probably get the design contract."  Bechtel is also planning a $5 billion convention center in Hoffman Estates, III., near Chicago and other huge projects. Bechtel frequently remains behind the scenes in its major projects. The proposed MX missile plan was headline news for weeks, but not a single journalist bothered to find out that the MX proposal had been drawn up by a presidential commission composed of John McCone, Richard Helms, and Nicholas Brady, former Senator from New Jersey and now chairman of Dillon Read -- loyal Bechtelites, one and all. Mother Jones pointed out in June 1984 that Stephen Bechtel Sr. was on the advisory committee of the Export Import Bank, which finances many Bechtel projects, and that Bechtel Corp. created a new position for John Moore, president of EX IM Bank, as "executive vice president for financial services", which he had no doubt rendered. Mother Jones continued, "Never before has a corporation been so visibly linked to the presidency. It has had close ties with every chief of state since Eisenhower. Bechtel contributed heavily to Reagan's campaign in 1980. Peter Flanigan of Dillon Read played a key role. Shultz and Weinberger endorsed Reagan in the spring of 1980, joined by Walter Wriston of Citibank, who is on the Bechtel board of counselors, and Robert Quenon, president of Peabody Coal Co. Kenneth Davis, a Bechtel vice president, is No. 2 in the Dept. of Energy. Casey (CIA) represented Pertomina, the giant oil company of Indonesia which has been a good customer of Bechtel."