I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag of the

United States of Bechtel and to the

tyranny for which it stands, one

corporation, under God, Indivisible,with Profits and Power for Stephen.

Stephen Bechtel Jr.Whether you realize it or not, our

world's mi ghtily i nfluenced by this hardplaying head of the g i ant Bechtel Cor-poration . Though the Bechtel Co . has beenmaking headlines recently for its pen-chant for buying top government offi-cials, its influence is really muchgreater and more pervasive thancontrol-ling mere Secretaries of State or De-fense . The largest in the world, StephenBechtel's construction company ("We willbuild anything, anywhere, anytime")vir-tually creates its own foreign policy.Rather than just thinking of Bechtel

when you read news of another huge con-tract awarded him or one of his golfbuddies, think of his influence on ourdaily lives.

In the Bay Area, for instance, we havethe "Bechtel Tax" -a #% sales tax thatall of us pay for BART, that troubledmass transit system that Bechtel pushedfor, designed, and built . Decades later,we continue to pay for the system withevery 6-pack, record, t-shirt, or skate-board we buy . And what have we got? Aquirky system designed to bring white-collar workers into the "Manhattan ofthe West", which used to be called SanFrancisco.And where's Bechtel? Oh, he lives in

Pebble Beach . They don't pay the extratax down there.Every time you pay your utility bill

you can think of Stephen Bechtel, Jr .,too . His company has built 35% of thenuclear power plants in our country . Andas these boondoggles run at half power,with soaring maintenance costs and in-creasingly-apparent dangers,don't blameyour utility . Steve Bechtel sold them thedamn things in the first place.But where's Bechtel? He has already

shifted his Power Division to get thelucrative contracts to clean up and/ordismantle these nuclear time bombs, like-ly to make more money at it in the next20 years than they did building them.The Three Mile Island nuclear plant isa current clean up/repair project, esti-mated at earning them $1 billion by 1987,while repairing the engineering defectsof the Rancho Seco plant is another . Byhiring Bechtel, PG&E felt they would beable to obtain the government's permis-sion to bring the plant to full power.Considering Bechtel's government ties,it seems a smart move.Have you seen downtown San Francisco

lately? You can't . It's been buried un-der 50-story refrigerator boxes -SteveBechtel's idea of progress . Even fromthe Bay Bridge (Bechtel, 1939), the once-oeautiful city has been engulfed by mega-structures that make it look like everyother uninhabitable city in the nation.Cold winds blow through empty streetswhile all of the commuters flee to thesafety of the suburbs.Who will win the arms race? One sure

bet is Bechtel . The Chronicle carriedthe heartening news July 31 that thecompany would be applying their engi-neering brilliance to the MX missle . Thatday they received $19 .3 million to studya basing concept that would put the mis-sles 2-3,000 feet underground . After theRussians bomb the fuck out of us, these

missles would "burrow their way to thesurface to hit Soviet targets ." Great!The final decision on the MX's will

be made Dec . 1, and although Cap Wein-berger (Bechtel alumnus 1980) has "dis-qualified himself from any official actsinvolving the interest of the BechtelCorp," I have a suspicion that the 'bur-rowing missles' might one day surface.Carry the nightmare further, and you'llhave Stephen Bechtel emerging from hisbomb shelter to offer his company's ser-vices in clearing up the debris left bythe holocaust . And if his missle basingplan isn't chosen (this is the best part)he's still $19 .3 million richer!Bechtel's ability to be in the right

place at the right time is uncanny, andmore than just a coincidence . For exam-ple, when the Arab countries began torise in wealth and power, Bechtel wasthere with a few former ambassadors andCIA directors in its pocket to take ad-vantage of the situation.

The result is the incredible abilitythey have for gobbling up lucrative con-struction contracts everywhere . Theirmost notable project is in Jubail, SaudiArabia, where Bechtel is engaged in thelargest single construction job in thehistory of the world, transforming thesleepy fishing village into a completecity where 300,000 people will live, workand die . From the desalinization plantthan cleans the water to the industrialplants they work in . . . .it will all bestamped "Made by Bechtel".

Bechtel discovered the wonders of work-ing for the government during WWII, buil-ding Liberty Ships . War profiteering? Itis a dirty job, but somebody has to doit . For 3 years workers' wages were fro-zen for the "good of the country", whileBechtel made millions off an investmentof less than $100 .000.

Bechtel's partner at the time was JohnMcCone, an interesting fellow who wenton to fame as head of the Atomic EnergyCommission under Eisenhower and CIA chiefunder JFK and LBJ.

But let's not go at this haphazardly.Here's a list of some of the major Bech-tel men currently running the country:Casper Weinberger - Secretary of De-

fense ; Bechtel's chief counsel until hisappointment.George Schultz - Secretary of State;

Bechtel's $500,000-a-year president fray.1974 to 1982 ; Reagan brought him to Wash.(or vice-versa) as consultant in 1980.

W . Kenneth Davis - Dep Secretary ofEnergy ; V .P. of the Bechtel Power Co .,with them since ' 58 ; though his work atBechtel was building the now-deadly fal-tering nuclear plants, Davis recentlycommited the U .S . to the breeder reactororogram . You'll never guess who's get-ting the contracts.

Philip Habib-Even special envoys needsteady employment . Habib is a specialconsultant for Bechtel working in Asiaand the Pacific (New Guinea and Indo-nesia, where Bechtel is in big) . Now thathe's negotiated the end of the destruc-tion of Beirut, watch to see who getsthe contracts to rebuild that city.

Richard Helms-CIA director under Nixonand later ambassador to Iran . Used hiscontacts in the Middle East for Bechtelwhen he served as a consultant . No sur-prise that Bechtel was digging for cop-per in Chile again, not long after theCIA-Kissinger-Pinochet coup.

The list goes on and on . The Los An-geles Times has estimated that a full1/6th of Bechtel's employees have gov-ernment backgrounds . Their futures?

What surprises can we expect from Bech-tel? One can only guess . Besides building

the MX missle bases, there is a chancea Bechtel-designed and built breederreactor will become more and more favoredby our energy "experts" . Reagan's ap-proval of the Clinch River BreederReactor is the first signal . A HouseEnergy & Commerce Subcommittee called it"a costly and technical fiasco" : oppo-nents have long feared that it will in-crease the possibility of diverting plu-tonium (breeders produce more enricheduranium than they consume), spreadingnuclear weapons to other countries justas Bechtel's reactors in India led totheir A-bomb.The company led a consortium in 1976

that nearly gained control over U.S . pro-duction of enriched uranium for nuclearpower plants . They had the backing ofthe Ford administration, but the billwas defeated in the Senate.Reagan will continue to hinder the

Russia-to-Europe natural gas pipeline.Bechtel is ready to come forward withits proposal to build a $9 billion pipe-line from Nigeria 2,480 miles across theSahara and under the Mediterranean toEurope . The U .S . saves face, Europe getsgas with U .S . cooperation, and Bechtelgets another huge contract.Bechtel is currently involved in 113

major ($50 million or more, each) pro-jects in 21 countries . With $11 .4 bil-lion in profits last year (and up 50%from the year before), Bechtel operatescompletely without public scrutiny, aclosely-run family operation (StephenJr . is 3rd generation) that even WallStreet analysts are unable to penetrate.They buy Wall St . analysts, too.

—Jerry Booth

Thanks to the Data Center in Oaklandfor their assistance in researching thisarticle . The Data Center is part of theCenter for Investigative Report-ing .

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AK 47KNOWYOIJIIWEAPONHaving just returned from Europe, my

zolumn this issue is dedicated to bring-ing you the news of the world, or morespecifically, news of Germany, France,Britain, and Ireland.The politics of the bomb are still

very much alive in Germany . Graffiti insupport of the R.A.F . (Red Army Faction)is to be found all over Germany . Themost striking of which read : Jesus-Che-Baader . There had been a bombing at thehotel I stayed at in Heidelberg the daybefore I arrived . Most of the new waveof political activity in Germany is aimedat the U.S. occupation forces, who ar-rived after W .W.II and have never left.Those who whine at the number of Soviettroops in East Germany would do well tolook at -the thousands of U .S. troops inthe West. A force most unsettling to theGermans, who realize that these troopsmake them the perfect battleground forWorld War III.

Since the General Strike and mass up-rising of 1968 in Paris, the French po-lice are everywhere, and well armed (of-ten to be seen on the streets of Pariswith sub-machineguns) . Paris had alsorecently seen a number of bombings, theseunfortunately, aimed by anarchists whowere unaware of the difference betweena Jew and a zionist . The people of Franceare already becoming disillusioned withthe Socialist government, which whileupholding its support to Latin Americanrevolutionaries, still trades with SouthAfrica (France is one of the largestarms suppliers to South Africa), haskissed up to the Zionists, has moved veryslowly on its pledged nationalizations,and which has done nothing to meet thedemands of its internal oppressed minor-ities, the Bretons, .Alsacions, and theCorsicans.

Britain remains in the jingoistic mo-rass left by the Falklands war . The ul-tra-right is seen less on the streetsof London now than in the past, but thisseems to be because the Tory governmentis so close to them, they have littleto demonstrate about . The British opin-ion on Northern Ireland has sunk intomourning for a few dead horses . And, inWales, Welsh nationalists have been ar-rested in the last year by the thousands.

In Ireland the war continues as usual.The Brits continue to suffer casualtiesfrom bomb and bullet, but have been suc-cessful in jailing 40 revolutionariesin Belfast and 35 in Berry . In the southof Ireland, the state has increased itscollaboration with the Brits . One fel-low, Nicky Kelly, is still in prison onobviously false charges of train robbery,despite the fact that the others convic-ted with him have all been released whenthe government hoax was exposed . A majorcampaign is under way in his support,as is the case for a number of individu-als who are being charged in the southfor actions in the north under a new law.One of these is Eilish Flynn, generalsecretary of the Irish Republican So-cialist Party, who we spent most of ourtime with while in Ireland.

The I . R .S .P . is under heavy harassmentfrom the government of the south, whichwas brought home to us very clearly whenwe were stopped and harassed by the Spe-cial Branch (a political police force)for merely walking out of the I .R .S.P.office in Dublin . More on Ireland andthe I .R .S .P . next issue.

Peter Urban

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