1: Fourteen DaysIn her first-ever diary entry, recorded eight days after President John F. Kennedy is assassinated, Lady Bird presents a dramatic, cinematically detailed moment-by-moment account of those terrible hours in Dallas, and the days that follow. In some cases, the pipes would even explode. Then in 1995, at the same time Cheney was taking over the reins at Halliburton, the Pentagon handed the company a $550 million contract to provide logistical support for US and NATOs IFOR forces in Bosnia, Croatia and Hungry. So let the man use his privilege to shield and protect the woman, an old role deployed for a modern purpose. Fifty-two years later, Halliburton offered its corporate jets for use by George Bush and his campaign team during the 2000 campaign and subsequent tumultuous Florida recount. If I asked, say, a few hundred people anywhere over 25 or 30 years old, its a good bet theyd know a few things. Amid this turmoil, Lady Birds ideas about her own work are changing -- what started as planting flowers in underserved DC neighborhoods is growing into an agenda that brings environmentalism and social justice together in Americas cities. In the summer of that year, George Brown worked out a strange deal with Halliburton, which was looking to diversify its operations. Fluor-Daniel, Parsons and GSM Services were all were just as qualified for the task. Cheney swiftly announced two goals for the company: make it the top Pentagon contractor and greatly expand its contractual relationships with foreign governments. But I went ahead and talked about wildflowers so as not to scare anybody, because I knew if the people came to love wildflowers theyd have to eventually care about the land that grew em., From the July 1973 issue: The last days of the president. This episode includes one of the most consequential. The Pentagons civilian leadership mothballed the explosive report for more than five months, until after the election, the inauguration, the State of the Union Address and the Defense Department budget request had all safely transpired. WebLyndon B. Johnson: Foreign Affairs. A later probe found that the company had bought the plywood for $14 per sheet. It was a political partnership and a powerful one at that. First ladies? WebAs of 2022, Lady Bird Johnsons net worth is under review. How fat? In 1997, the renewal of the LOGCAP contract was finally put up for competitive bid and, lo and behold, DynCorp snatched the golden egg of Pentagon contracts away from Halliburton. In the ever-expanding universe of Pentagon contracting, cost is never the problem, public exposure is. This bizarre and secret waiver of standard Pentagon accounting practices was signed by the Corps top contracting officer, Gordon A. Sumner, on December 19, 2003stymieing the pending congressional and Pentagon investigations in contract fraud by the company. Instead, Lt. General Strock steered the cost-plus contract into Halliburtons hands without the faintest whiff of competition. In the fall of 1979, the Iranian revolution led to the expulsion of Halliburton from the lucrative sinecure it had enjoyed under the Shahs dictatorship. Ep. So little doubt, in fact, that a Halliburton executive had been invited to attend the secret conclave. On Monday, May 16, 1966, John Steinbeck and his 19 year-old son, John, visited President Lyndon Johnson in the Oval Office of the White House. 6: BlindsidedBy the mid-60s, you can hear a growing distance between Lady Bird and the protest movement thats sweeping the country. Ironically, Altanmia executives griped that they were forced to charge that hefty amount in order to cover the kickbacks and bribes they were forced to pay to Halliburton officials in order to secure the contract. Halliburton was also back in Iran. And to purchase an Austin radio station that she probably had a big hand in growing into a very successful media company. And there it sat. Eartha Kitt didnt want to attend the White House luncheon that wound up derailing her career: the 1968 Women Doers Luncheon, the First Lady Claudia (Lady Bird) For Nancy Reagan, we meant a combative us-against-them partnership that betrayed a different kind of insecurity, Tumultys biography suggests. During Reagans second term, she saw the peril posed by the Iran-Contra scandal and hectored a stubbornly resistant Ronnie until, in a crucial speech to the American public, he admitted to the arms-for-hostages deal, and to his own mistake. In 1919, Red Halliburton started the New Method Oil Well Cementing Company from his home in Wilson, Oklahoma, a hardscrabble town in the oil patch. Instead, the company opted for posh offices at the Khalifa resort on the beaches of the Persian Gulf a few miles from Kuwait City. Lady Bird Johnson was a first lady -- but her audio diaries reveal so much more. In a memo to Lyndon just five months into his presidency, Lady Bird predicts how the Vietnam war will derail his administration, and proposes a clear end-date for his 5: CaliforniaRiots, uprisings and protests rock the country in the summer of 1966, and despite their progress with civil rights legislation, the Johnsons cant seem to move fast enough. ), Erasure vs. Sumud: How the Nakba Came to Define the Collective Palestinian Identity, Violence as an Investment Policy, Human Rights Violations as a Business Model, Politicians and the Anzac Tradition: a Story of Manipulation and Mythology, Her Name Was Nora al-Awlaki: The Real Reason Donald Trump Should Rot in Hell, Relocating UN Headquarters out of the United States, Nichole Stephens, Administrative Assistant. A parallel probe was launched by the Securities and Exchange Commission into an admission by Halliburton that one of its managers slipped $2.4 million into the pockets of another Nigerian official in order to secure illegal tax-breaks for its business in the impoverished African nation. Each time they were bombed, Halliburton was called in to repair the damage. When Mossadegh moved forward with his plans, the oil companies appealed to President Eisenhower to intervene, who turned the matter over to his National Security Council. In Iraq, LOGCAP would be a recipe for rampant fraud over the basic of services. Soon Halliburton employees were a common sight across South Vietnam digging wells, building latrines, managing commissaries, excavating harbors and constructing barracks from Da Nang to Cam Rahn Bay. Young Claudia Alta Taylor, nicknamed Lady Bird by a nanny (or playmateexactly who isnt certain), was 5 when she lost her mother. She brought Jane Jacobs to the White House, and conferred with other urban planners and environmental thinkers. As far as the Pentagon was concerned all of this was written off to carping from the sidelines by busy-bodies and tightwads at the State Department. LBJ also enjoyed free access to a DC3, courtesy of Brown & Root, which would rush him across the vast Texan plains for as many as 10 appearances in a single day. Both had lively, unconventional mothers who supported womens suffrageand yet both girls grew up during a time when second billing (or none) was a wifes lot, even in the most collaborative marital enterprises. From his early days running the Texas branch of FDRs National Youth Administration, LBJ had set his eyes on landing a seat in the US senate. But the most majestic profits, as always, were to be made during wartime and LBJ gave them a big one. She wrapped a towel around herself and got Ronnie out of the shower; dripping, they both stood watching TV as the news sank in that he had won in a landslide. Sure, beautifying highways mattered, but when she was in office, her real focus was on what we now call environmental justice, especially in American cities and on bringing democratic access to nature to people of color especially. With the bulk of the Pentagon contracts cashed in and government investigators closing in on all fronts, Halliburton placed Kellogg, Brown & Root on the market, looking to squeeze one final payout from its golden goose. From May 2003 to March 2004, Halliburton sent the Corps of Engineers bills totalling more than $875 million for supplies of fuel to US operations in Iraq. One of the first politicians to use the newfangled machine, Johnson would descend upon his campaign venues with the Yellow Rose of Texas blaring from loudspeakers attached to the landing gear a prelude for the Wagner-screaming choppers in Apocalypse Now. Julia Sweig's fourth book, "Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight" comes out March 16, 2021 from Random House. With the help of his pals Sam Rayburn and Senator Robert Kerr, Johnson, a freshman senator, got himself appointed chairman of the committee overseeing the Federal Power Commission. We hear Lady Birds growing sense that Bobby Kennedy will become LBJ's political rival, and RFKs bring-down-the-house performance at the Democratic Convention in the summer of 1964. We hear about the decade-long relationship between the two of them, one that dates back to the Kennedys arrival in Washington in the mid-50s, and hear fascinating observations these women make about each other. This contract was to prove immensely profitable over the next three war-plagued decades. His distaste for Uncle Sam was matched only by his ferocious hatred of Mexicans, blacks and labor unionists. The Marshall Ford Dam deal launched LBJs career a can-do politician without parallel in American politics and it set Brown & Root on course to become one of the federal governments favorite contractors. First stop Somalia, where Halliburton set up shop providing fuel, food, laundry services and even morticians for US troops. I cringe every time we step out of a car. The irony, as Tumulty points out, is that in allowing the presidents schedule to be determined by an unseen stranger who would know his movements, she left him more exposed, not less. She worked hard to be a fully engaged participant in Lyndon B. Johnsons career, and while his biographers have rarely emphasized her centrality, Johnson himself certainly did. And then the company and the Pentagon sought to hide the evidence of these overchages from the international auditors.. By outsourcing most of the logistics work in Kosovo, the Pentagon was able to reduce its deployment by around 8,000 troops, helping Clinton and Albright to sell an unpopular war at home. Lady Bird Johnson (born December 22, 1912) is famous for being political wife. With a key difference: For wives, the choices have almost always elicited harrumphing from some quarter or anotheras the ruckus over Dr. Jill Bidens use of her well-earned honorific served to remind us. Thats real money, even by Pentagon standards. This coincided with the assassination of Diem (with American collusion) and subsequent chaos in the South Vietnamese government, administration and army. She came into office in the wake of the JFK assassination. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? That she understood early on that the Vietnam War might well destroy her husbands presidency. But the company had an ace in the hole in the shape of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the lumbering former schoolteacher who was vying to replace the departed Buchanan. WebLyndon and Lady Bird Johnson and their connections to Bell Helicopter? But this rate was nearly three times the 97 cents per gallon that the Iraqi Oil State Marketing Organization was paying to buy oil from Jordan and Turkey. Gathered around that table just down the hall from the office Douglas Feith were ranking officials from the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as the Pentagon. Then an unexpected thing happened. It would become the most expensive political campaign waged in Texas until George W. Bush, underwritten by the descendents of LBJs backers, defeated Anne Richards in the fierce 1994 gubernatorial campaign. WebEartha Kitt confronts President Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson about the Vietnam War at a White House luncheon. Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection via. As the war drew to a close, Brown & Root went from building ships to melting more than 20,000 surplus airplanes they bought on the cheap from the War Assets Administration. In all a report prepared by the Democratic Policy Committee estimates that Halliburtons overcharges in Iraq alone exceed $1 billion. Cheney, as is his natural inclination, continues to deny any involvement, direct or implicit, in the Pentagon deals that have sent billions in no bid contracts to his former company, at the very same time Halliburton continued to sweeten his bank accounts with more than $140,000 a year.
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