>> have you found resistance falls more along party lines or is that more kind of a myth? >> for not in my backyard resistance is universal. it knows no regional or other kinds of boundaries. you know it has grown i think in recent years and that is not surprising because the country has gotten larger. the population has increased and that means we need more power. we also as a people, and the history of mankind almost every new major innovation tends to be dependent on new supplies of energy. we all marveled that the high-tech revolution of the 1990s and since but that revolution is largely driven by electricity. the electricity to manufacture, the ships and the components of computers, the electricity needed to operate laptops and pcs.

and that is the challenge because that has meant that we needed to ramp up the amount of energy available and which in turn has meant more plants, more transmission lines and hence more public resistance. >> thank you very much for your time. i appreciate it. .. discusses lockheed martin reach into the lives of ordinary americans with the father of the

ten fighter jet, with pierre sprey. >> host: injury excited about this book. you're writing about stuff that i've lived through, and ever since 1966 i've been involved in one way or another with lockheed project of one kind of a mother and my role working for the government and after that for military reform and this is a subject about which i thought i knew a fair amount. your book has brought in a whole level of history and detail i didn't know about, both exciting and timely. this book is extremely timely. that's the main reason i'm excited about it. we just had to years of searing revelations about how big banks, big financial houses have spent 30 years unravelling the structure of regulation set up

in the thirties to prevent another depression from ever happening. using their money and their influence and their campaign contributions for 30 years relentlessly to unbuttoned the structure to allow them to merge into larger and larger corporations, kill more and more competition, redo the regulations that were set in place to keep them from gambling with our money and they did so with great success, and the upshot was that the incompetence and greed of there and executives wrecked our economy and we are living with the aftermath and it looks like it is more of the same, the tax payer money is going to continue to be used to pay their bonuses and allow them to keep on gambling with our money. i think the parallel of that

with less doherty fit together is amazing. i think the book has echoed all of that on the defense side and we have the same themes. we have the themes of how much influence to these corporations have on the government, have they worked to allow themselves to allow things to happen so that they can merge and kill competition, how much have they used their lobbyists and campaign money and so on to affect our foreign policy, to affect whether we fight war or not, and last, of course, the large question, have they hurt or helped national defence? the book bares all of that, the fascinating detail and the right way to do it which is to go into detail on what is more or less the largest of all of these defense corporations and of a poster child of a whole military

industrial complex, and your book, by delving into the very fine historical details i think sheds light for anybody who is interested in the subject and it is of course being very heavily on everybody in washington because for the first time in a long time the defense budget is under assault. so if you have lots of stuff to tell people that is new and fascinating and why don't we start with just the origins, the modern lockheed as we know it started back in the 30's with a bankrupt company and to tell a story that i've never heard before. >> guest: even before that you had these two brothers who spelled their name laughd until

he got tired of people calling him mog had a and so they spelled it to the name of the company. they were working initially in the garage in san francisco and they did build a successful plan they could land in and they were taken people for joy rides. they had their ups and downs and the miss world war i the didn't really produce anything. it was useful for the war and they were against it several times before they became a really concerned. and malcolm, one of the brothers said enough already. i can't handle them. miners can't take this so he went into the auto industry and created the hydraulic brake system that became standard in the industry for a while and said i'm out of this business. i went out of business after the war. they got some investors and started again as the corporations of the 20's, and

also that had some moments. they developed a plan but the than the detroit aircraft corporation region which was funded by the automakers decided to buy lockheed. they were going to be the general motors and they call themselves so in comes a businessman from the east to knows nothing about aircraft. >> host: but is a key figure in all of this because he continued to run lockheed deep into the sixties if not for the 70's. >> guest: but the pattern for work leader. >> host: she's a very key figure in his character and what he was interested in set the tone for the whole subsequent history of lockheed and lockheed martin. >> guest: so he was a businessman. he thought this would be a fun thing to do and he got it cheap.

it was his group reverses the company. >> host: he was a young millionaire from wall street, right? he made the million and some speculation or another, didn't know a thing about their plans. >> guest: that he felt like he knew about he could sort of rescue the company and he said you know, as long as i don't have to put much money into it where is the downside? if we get this thing going you can be over eastern representative and the whole family can do well out of this. but the 30's were tough for them. they did build the electro which had some sales to airlines and so forth, but at a certain point he said well, i prefer not to sell to the government. it was too much politics, too much light and shadow. i don't want to get involved in all of that but by the mid 30's the government started to look pretty good. they tried to sell early on to the postal service to the postmaster general didn't like the plans.

he said the flight to fast, they are dangerous, you know, we are going to be crashing but anyway, he said i'm going to have to start selling machines. there's no option. i can't start my own airline this is where the money is going to be. and so began the government and then the first big deal is with the british. >> host: it is particularly interesting to me you already made some small items to sell to the germans and the japanese so this wasn't except the patriotic enterprise and all in violation of the neutrality act of the time. so they were already violating ball, trying to sneak military airplanes into the country in order to make some money. >> guest: they have a plan on the border they plan them and then drive them across to get them to an expert in canada and

from there they would go to the u.k.. >> host: totally illegal in violation of the neutrality act because great britain was a belligerent with their first big customers. >> guest: and they went from being in the enterprise to being the biggest company in the industry and that really continued in the british. >> host: the air when they sold the version is a perfectly incompetent bomber version of their little airline called the hudson and actually managed to sell 1700 to the british and for the german fighters for the rest of the war kept them out of control and stuff like that and a few engagements into shreds. it's not like they did the british a big favor. >> although at the time in discussing it with the british

officials gross said it's going to be tough to think we can do it. of course it's going to cost a little more but, you know, we will give all of these sources to you as if it were some humanitarian gesture. >> host: of course they didn't give of their resources because they worked very quickly on the two engine fighter that made the fortune of the p4 become the key 38 lightning which was a disaster which proved to be so vulnerable to mr. schmidt that was the only airplane that i know of that an air force general actually asked to remove from the theater from the german because there were getting torn up so bad for the sluggish low rate and very, very flammable your plan so they got yanked out and sent to peripheral theaters but managed to sell under 10,000 of those.

we beyond what they sold the british, and that really turned them into that time and medicare plan corporation. >> guest: from the business point of view growth was doing pretty well. early on they rejected north got to design things and once he left the seemed to flounder in terms of getting decent designs. >> host: he had made a huge name for himself but it was fluff and self-promotion. kelly johnson was one of the designers of the p38 that worked out so badly. he stayed on and became a founder of the skunk works that figures in your book important. >> guest: one of his assistants said he looked like fields except without the sense of humor. >> host: i knew him and he tried to convince me of the

airplanes and he took me around the sr-71 hangar and gave a whole bunch of hooey how invisible the polls and it turned out to be invisible lies. that is the way it builds a great reputation. >> guest: they come to the end of the war and suddenly they are in a position pretty much anything they build is going to be purchased, and growth and correspondence have never seen anything like those short appalling weeks so it wasn't the war that was appalling -- >> host: in the end of the huge flow of money. >> guest: so the gravy train was shutting down and he decided well you know, we have to find some way to get back to me how your plan for aircraft purchases for the government so they are pushing for air policy that would sort of make a case for

aircraft as part of national defence and having to fund at higher levels. >> host: this was an industry board to fund the government. >> guest: there were testimony's taken from 150 individuals and none of them had anything other than a stake in the aircraft industry. from the military or the industry one correspondent from "the new york times" was an aviation. >> host: that set a pattern. a very successful pattern for basically supporting the government more money into aircraft with the needed them or not. >> guest: and he was very energetic and we needed this public interest and people who were above the fray and of course we got the exact opposite and there was a congressional board and then truman appointed the commission that said well

which it called military spending by -- >> host: it was a total litter on the shelf in the case anyway which is why truman appointed him. there's another side story, very important side story, which was lockheed and the other contractors which were desperate because they knew they would go bankrupt if the defense budget shrink the way it traditionally did after every war to where we have just a garrison army and air force during peace time until we needed they were terrified of that happened they would all go bankrupt. they put together a very big slash fund for the aircraft industry association in order to create a new threat and with great success in 47, 48. with a great success the use that money to create with the origins of the war and they

created a threat that didn't exist. they created the idea that the soviet union was just waiting to pounce on all of europe, the soviet union was flat on its back and starting to feed itself and could hardly feed will for the chance to pour across germany and france but this aircraft industry fund actually created the propaganda and the atmosphere that started the cold war. this is very well documented in a book called the truman and the war that scared 1948 and they directly contributed by the way truman's campaign fund so lockheed and the other principal companies started that pattern putting lots of money behind the president because truman was about to be defeated by dewey was the republican, and at that

point, truman reagan as the secretary defense les johnson said we are building up we are not shrinking the budget and everything turned around. the budget started to expand and the other presidents briefed a great breath of relief which was turned into cui when they manage to get the corrine and war started which is more than any other war it was fought to something to bail out the defense budget. that war was the real meeting of the peacetime lockheed because huge budget to make available, none of which were spent on those troops in korea. the troops in korea were beginning frostbite and inadequate ammunition supply and all that and in the meanwhile this huge budget was being used to fund nuclear bombers and for lockheed cargo airplanes. lockheed got the c-130 started, which was a hugely successful

transport program since the bomb got the fighters. it is a world record. the start of the thing in 1951. it's still in production in the year 2010 at outrageous prices and it is a four-engine moderate size transport supposed to go into the front lines but not super capable of covering to the rough fields better than anything else we have for that purpose. it was my first job in the pentagon when i arrived in the pentagon in 1956 was to look over the c-130 mess that we have inherited from that start in the korean war. we were loaded up with over 1500c130 is that we absolutely didn't need just, you know, to keep on buying lockheed products that have gone on all the way through first truman and then eisenhower and then on into kennedy.

>> guest: congress would add every year many more than the pentagon. >> host: 56 and did the study of defense for the secretary that said we have got far more than we need. we need to fix the ones we got so they can land on the fields, they aren't very capable of doing it. we need to can a number of them because we have too many to be shut down the production line and really do something for the troops with the ones we have left. he accepted that proposal and got totally skunked in the congress because lockheed's lobbyists were there and watch as they are today. today even the air force lobbies against the year plan. they don't want it. it's just a waste of money, and every year a few more sneaking to the budget. that the airplane when i arrived in 66 in today's dollars it was costing about 15 million. it is now up to 100 million or more in today's dollars.

this is the picture of what bob gross started with the aircraft industry association and of course he wasn't the only one the president of grumman and all during the same. >> guest: we also see the revolving door oliver heckles had headed triggermen for the army in the war and so he started to use that to their a vantage and of course he was now in the industry side making money from it as opposed to the government side supposed to be overseeing it. those connections helped advance the interest of the industry which would see up to the moment, these, the 90's and it's very current that kind of techniques. >> host: bob gross was a trend setter in influencing the government from before world war

ii and after he became notorious in the industry for being ready to ride for in defense ministers and even prime minister's. he got lucky deep into the international bribery business and finally wound up as you had encountered all of those scandals in japan. >> guest: it didn't really come to light until the 70's but early in the late 50's, they were using their influence in japan first to sell the f104 that went on to have all kind of problems. it was called the widow maker in germany because it crashed so became a huge defender of the

widow maker. 0 it was the last fighter and just was worse than 1930. >> guest: in japan the in that are hooking up with a organized-crime figure who also had been imprisoned as a war criminal right after world war ii said this was a very on favorite character but he also helped found the party in japan, so he had credible connections and airlines and the military people. he was the conduct to the the japanese government. >> host: they found guys like that in every country they were trying to do business the found that guy in japan of course and the sound of the prince bernhard in europe and another for the year east. these were notorious international arms agents which is kind of synonymous with bribery. >> guest: people like to call

them commissions. they don't like to call them bribes of course. occasionally they call it a kick back and they say that is a better term than a bribe, but yes, people like bernard had unbelievable connections. not only was he at the issue with the air force but he was every organization you could think of he was a part of it, the airlines and he also had a kind of soft side. he was a part of the world wildlife fund a at was that the charity ball, so he had this whole image of a good citizen at the same time taking the commission and actually asking for more. >> host: we are talking that millions year, we are not talking 50,000 or $100,000. there, we are talking about millions involved in these so-called commissions which of course are bribes intended for various government officials that prince bernhard and protections with the japanese gangster had connections with.

>> eventually decided to work with more troops and he was playing both sides of the street. >> host: in that sense and bob gross was a pioneer. he talked to the rest of the industry how to use these unsavory characters and northrop jumped in quickly behind him, president jones not just prince bernhard but also for the mideast. the same practices. >> the could split the business and still do very well. >> guest: they had issues because they could never figure out what the money was ending up with the people they wanted to bribe. >> host: that's the problem with agents, you never know. you're busy laundering money to look like you're legitimately paying an agent and then you can't be on top of it you can't have your accountants on top to make sure he pays the checks

because then you're implicated. the other part of the whole bribery business i s the offici aircraft company spending the money usually gets it could com to that and that is what keeps -- this is a very cozy system that's very profitable for everybody including the people offering the right money. they may complain that it's very expensive they are keeping part of it. >> guest: once you take it for public scrutiny -- >> host: that arms bribery that is being well investigated the person is putting up a regional bride in the american company so you can just kind of count on the fact that there is a speed back the one on and that bob gross, when we went to japan to try to bribe the primm minister in japan was not just looking to sell airplanes but was also looking to do well for

himself. it is the same problem as the executive outrageous compensation of the mega banks. >> guest: they asked aren't you concerned, do you know where this money is going? he said well, not really, i give it to the agents' and i get the sale. that's all i care about. it must work. they pay the guy and get the sale. >> host: there's the other parties not mentioning, i get some, too. >> guest: so they really pioneered this in the 50's, but then in the 70's had a lot of run around it because they were on the verge of bankruptcy and they desperately needed to sell an airliner as they put a lot of money in and they were not getting a lot sales, and they were afraid they were going to sink the company so they went through the routine using the the same people. they didn't have that kind of you've got to pay the prime

minister 1.7 million but then this other guy needs his 1.7 million, this minister needs to hundred thousand and the guy who did this was so proud he wrote a whole book 70 days over tokyo. [laughter] which is basically the bribery michigan. to the and he never admitted it was wrong to read it to the beatles did what nixon did and suddenly change the rules. if i can get business from my company spending a little money why wouldn't they do that? so, there wasn't really any kind of a learning curve. it was just might we get caught which early on as well, you know, depending on how much and how we do it is they're going to be any action against us already he's trying to figure out can we cover our tracks, not can we do it, but how do we do it and they

had some wonderful correspondence from one of the indonesian reps where they said we are getting $100,000 to play and not a dollar more. the keep coming back for more i am going to stand on my principal here. we will bride this far and no further. finally in the air force said we don't want a middle man. we want the money straight up. and lots of people are saying i don't know if we can write this off on our taxes. it is really just about how far can you push it? and of course the bribery rules were not as strict back then either city could give a little less concerned. >> host: they are not real strict now. by becoming the u.s. government was completely complicity, totally aware of it. even 1i was working on the same problem with respect to iran and the pentagon there were major

u.s. officials up to this research generals who were completely aware of this doherty and supporting its. some of them had to resign unde very peculiar and seven circumstances. >> guest: he could show you where he tried to explain it to folks in the pentagon and by the time he got done spinning and they said this is like an economic development program. he gives it to him, spreads the money around and it is an inexpensive way to do it, better than street foreign aid and by the way, we get some money out of the deal so how bad can it be? >> host: why don't you move forward from bob gross's seminal role and teaching the industry how to really influence government on their own to the next genius of that art, norm

augustine is the next ten of charismatic president of lockheed a few years later. >> guest: he was an impressive guy, sort of like the renaissance man at the expense industry who wrote augustine rules which everybody likes to quote and one of his -- >> host: by the way for a much in the bold of of gross except in some ways slicker didn't know a thing about airplanes. i knew on norm augustine, and his rules are kind of shallow almost like rumsfeld, shallow truisms, things getting more expensive but what he really knew about your plans wasn't his job, his job was to influence the government it very high levels to allow lockheed in the industry at that point he wasn't

associated with lockheed to about the industry to frist all get more and more money, keep the defense budget haughty and then when the defense budget started shrinking create mega corporations to kill all corporations to kill competition he was amazingly effected at doing that and your book recounts in detail how he maneuvered that and how many different connections he had in the government and those connections and then of course back into a job as the head of martin. >> guest: from there he engineers the merger, and along the way he decides weigel we are at it why don't we have the government subsidize? >> host: that is the great coup beyond bob gross. the government to pay us to kill off the competition.

>> guest: and the argument is what it was going to cut overhead so you owe us something. and if you are left consolidating presumably were going to do that for business reasons not because you get extra cash from the government. but he managed to work with bill perry and john deutch to head business relations. >> host: there was a very on wholley connection that continued for years and years after. he was already the most active proponent of the industry interests, very, very deeply committed to the industry and the defence industry finance tackle themselves so his connection with norm augustine was a huge conflict of interest to start with. >> guest: and they had to get a waiver because it was about six months into his administration when they were really why hearing this and their work rules about working with people you had former

financial relationships with. they went so far as to actually find a waiver saying we trust these guys, the national interest, don't worry about it. but then they published in the federal register that they had done this. it's kind of like an underground slush fund until the congress started digging a year later and found out these details of which point a lot of the money had already flown. >> host: it already subsidized merger and he'd these companies to downsize the company simply by closing down the factories were making money. >> guest: one thing that did the congress attention is dever subsidizing the bonuses of these people because if you leave the board of the company when the the merge degette golden parachutes and so a part of the parachutes were paid with government money. >> host: does that sound like an echo of today? >> host: it so on the money it

is on time. people don't understand that the corporations in the defense are just like the mega corporations among the banks and will find out from your book in greater detail how that works. >> guest: finally bernie sanders from vermont says this is ridiculous. we are subsidizing the bonuses, but the workers are getting very little. they are getting laid off, as we start calling it take off for layoffs and the try to get that money back at least the bonuses that were being subsidized. the lawyers said look a lot of this stuff has already been appropriated. you can't take that back. we will give you whatever is left. we haven't been paid yet. we will grant you that. >> host: let's take a break. >> guest: okay, great. >> host: "after words" and several other c-span programs are available for download as podcast. more with william and pierre in

a moment.

"after words" with william hartung and pierre sprey continues. >> host: said he gets paid nicely to merge with martin, norm augustine achieves his intention of creating the largest defense mega corporation of america and how does his career proceed after that? >> guest: he is not done yet because they by the defense

division just increasing far and away the largest contractor. >> host: they pick up more electronics for the business. >> guest: in the meantime he's had this advisory panel called the defense policy committee on trade. and this whole agenda they have been pushing for subsidizing the weapons exports which has been sort of stalled, and then finally he starts pushing once the gingrich revolution and he has a rocky plant right outside his district then finally they can get moving on this agenda secretive 15 billion-dollar loan guarantee fund which is going to make it possible to sell two or three or four times as many does this apply as they could before with the regular program. >> host: with taxpayer money. >> guest: exactly and there is a tax breaks roane and for the borders and their clients a couple hundred million dollars and then they run up against this issue that there is a member of congress who says if

they are going to do these loans you have to do them at the same rate and the same credit standards we do other government loans. and so, suddenly nobody was interested because they had to put money up front so they throw one system to romania and then it collapsed at its own wheat said he had created this opportunity to it than some smart thinking in congress blunted the benefits we hope to get them and working toward the nato expansion in the market. >> host: that brings up another thing that is interesting that i would love for you to talk about. how lockheed got involved in influencing, once again, the cold war, as the beginning in 1947 through the aircraft industry association they helped start the cold war after the berlin wall came down and russia collapsed and suddenly everybody

was left with no threats and no reason to have a defense budget lockheed pitched in mightily. i was able to start a new cold war to the need to expansion. >> guest: the committee to spin into nato and the main point he was bruce jackson who is also vice president of lockheed martin. >> guest: the dole presidential campaign and he chaired the platform committee for the 2000 republican convention to create the platform and george w. bush ran on. he was very close with some of the republican finance years who have other ventures and defense industry started the committee to expand nato and he set this isn't related to what i do and lockheed yet another hot behalf.

to try to make as many countries as possible for nato because then they would need the equipment that would operate well what he was equipment so they would have to get rid of all of their soviet things by new communications equipment and fighter planes and ground equipment so potentially this huge new market. >> host: and of course even more dangerous was the fact that this was alarming russians to know and because they had been promised there'd be no nato expansion of to their borders back to ronald reagan's time they have already been promised that. and here comes this committee and then the u.s. government and clinton falling right with it. clinton very much under the influence of this committee and actively promoting a free east european state they could find the would join with nato. it was terribly alarming to the russians, and that was in fact stoking the five-year of the cold war.

>> guest: well, you know, more so than the other companies, lockheed martin was in the middle of a lot of these political deals. some of the other companies they stood back but lockheed martin decided well to make this happen a lot of it the administration has had its own reasons to want to do it, but this little boost from the company's certainly couldn't hurt and then augustine did a kind of sales tour of europe and even talked to romanians if you buy a few things for much we will push harder to get you into nato. >> host: outrageous in the diplomatic product for promising the romanians an american commitment for nato in exchange for buying some weapons, totally of regis. >> guest: then they said if you buy from us we will do business for you. you can help work on part of the

engine for this, build the type years, there is business in the script for a sample if you buy american we will throw some of the money back your way. swedes almost sort of if you look at bribery of the passing back and forth of money they are packing back and forth the contracts in a way that's sort of a kid's bride if you buy from us we will throw you all this business of only will you help build the plan we will publish products around the world even some cases competing with other industries said the offsets where do take a deal that is supposed to be a straight commercial deal and you put this quid pro quo and the pentagon turns the other way and says companies to the need to do we are not going to regulate this. this is the modern version. it's not legal or bribery but it's the same concept of it to buy from us we will take care of you. >> host: that by no means

means the doherty is stopped because there's a lot of stuff going on behind closed doors to show you strong business and lots of other international arms dealers doing the same thing they did before. but yes, in the larger sense these offsets are just another way of american tax payer money to buy lockheed products. >> guest: to the nato expansion effort there is a new group the project for the new american century which basically in the second clinton term says you need a new policy of the reagan military strength and by the, we should get rid of that saddam hussein so the right to the president and to the heads of congress and say we need regime change in iraq. >> host: in 97 the road and manifesto about the necessity of the posing saddam regime change and invasion of iraq and all

that. and rumsfeld and cheney were involved. >> guest: rumsfeld, cheney, paul wolfowitz, the architects of the war already had this in mind back in the -- >> host: and i signed off on this manifesto. >> guest: and then it ends up who restricting it but mr. jackson saying he was involved in the nato expansion. >> host: he was a part of the new american century. >> guest: yes. and then from there we talked about the platform of the republican party in 2000 and then a leader he comes to the administration request to co-chair the committee for the liberation of iraq which does all kind of publicity and public speaking media work to try to stoke up support for the late 2002 to march, 2003 when the war begins in earnest, so i couldn't really find a another company that had quite that coordination of government and they do that kind of thing it's on the same

scale. >> host: i would pick lockheed martin is the poster child for this whole set of problems. its national security why i find the books of fascinating because the are the trend setter. and things like missile defense where it's sort of had its moment under ronald reagan interested under george herbert walker bush spending billions of dollars not for the big astroturf global shield that was when to block -- >> host: and lockheed helped fake a star wars test to keep the star wars budget going in the late reagan era.

there was a lot of skepticism now they're getting tired of star wars already. against the had a thing called the homing overlay experiment which is an intercept like an umbrella and block the incoming warheads. the initially were going to blow up the warhead as they came and. the second deal as well put a signal says here i am coming here i am, come get me. finally what they did is he to the warhead and put it at an angle much easier to detect, something that would never happen. so here we had this great success which is being picks of the credit for an anniversary that company puts out a press release and first hit the hill and so forth and ten years after it happened in the merged because the engineer spoke up.

>> host: it turns out the test was a complete phony. >> guest: but by then tens of billions had been spent and other systems were developed so it was kind of a critical moment of the program where lockheed helped bail out the government and was kind of to make the test look like something that it wasn't. >> host: and it kept the budget for star wars going which is what the test was. >> guest: exactly. >> host: and there is lots of that happening to this day i assure you. >> guest: the helped craft the bush nuclear policy because it was called the national institute for public policy which had a lockheed martin executive on the board and it appeared to get lockheed martin money.

given that they had a lucky person on the board and they take the dimensions pretty likely -- >> host: just as the american century if bruce jackson was on the board could guarantee that there was money involved. >> guest: so this panel that the national institute put together said nuclear weapons is to get deep underground facilities, perhaps use it as a situation in a war like iraq we can target more companies with nuclear weapons not just look at china, russia, but let's look at iran and korea, syria, target's and usable weapons, this will sort of nightmare scenario that you wouldn't want your nuclear policy to be so this is laid out sort of in the january before the bush administration comes in and with nuclear posture adopt many of the suggestions could be

great minds think alike but it certainly could be aggressive minds think alike or it could be in fact they have some influence in the way that the nuclear policy was put together. >> host: i would imagine norm augustine was busy helping. >> guest: well it's really an amazing group. you have to give them credit. they really have figured out how to work the system. >> host: and the dewitt ceaseless 24/7. of course there's a lot of money at stake. >> guest: it is a campaign contributor. one of the lobbying spenders is bowing and they have a lot of work to do now because of the deficit doesn't talk about the first time in ten years. maybe you can level off and cut back. maybe we need to spend money that might be used in afghanistan and things like the f-22 fighter being fought and

for giving up the lobbying machine. and i've already got some good friends in the next. buck mckeon as winter and the arms services committee in the house and the district has many lockheed contributions and also has northrop grumman said he is going to be there to sort of the advocate on the hill to head of the calls for deficit reduction and keeping the but responding on the table not just taking it from social security discretionary programs, but from an across-the-board what do we really need to fund the country? do we need to spend in world war ii or can we perhaps defend the country with less than that? post, and there is powerful propaganda from the industry say why it has to be extended from those cuts it's so important. sounds very much like the same propaganda the opening out at 46 and 47. we must keep this capability in

place the defense is a important we can't consider that it's all the same rhetoric. >> guest: there's the jobs argument and -- >> host: it's continuously. that is the argument that comes out. when we have the aircraft threatened with being eliminated by robert gates and president obama, suddenly it was a jobs program. 95,000 jobs, 46 states and how can you possibly do this. so i dug into it a little bit and it was 30 fils a, 40,000 jobs. maybe this 46 not really 46 states, and there was one example of the kind of exception proves the rule they were able to stop the program to be president obama had to threaten a veto and he built a f-22 but at the same time once it was

canceled they increased the of 35 and the lockheed martin koza the cut for billion from the f-22, the putt for billion into the of 35 and effective in the factory of george bush is the main place being assembled the senator said actually it will be all right, it ends up we have the s 35, the jobs are here so it's a jobs fair to save the program, but in fact they were being taken care of and we are taking care of the industrial base because there will be more jobs and the of 35 program even than there were in the f-22. so i think you can take on these companies but they are so big and they have their fingers in so many different high -- pies. >> host: in your accounting in your book this e5, a wonderful book sample you lost the competition in building and they mustered so much horsepower in

the congress and with president johnson that they won the contract. >> guest: it was fascinating because they really were not going to win based on the air force assessment. cresco they were technically inferior to boeing. boeing had a better design and showing the design became the seventh 47, one of the most successful airliners of all time. but because of what he'd's clout and cementer russell, the hugely powerful people in the house and the senate. >> guest: and he had georgia and a specific interest. the mayor of marietta said lots of things think so 2% mentor and headed the defense appropriations committee, so he really if he needed one person this was the person he would want. when president johnson came to

announce the award he said there are plenty of places we would like to have this but nobody else has the georgia delegation and so that is why this has to happen. then on the other side from south carolina and they are offering to put the district, the subcontractors have the district and is he coming to town lockheed martin helps pay for the statue, so every possible way of trying to influence and of course this is standard operating procedure for him. this campaign was rivers to rivers. >> host: still standard operating procedure. lockheed is doing the same with the georgia delegation now. nothing has changed >> guest: the job argument now in some ways i think it has more influence even than the campaign because you can point to the factory and say i help to get

this. >> host: it's called political engineering, where you place the contracts, and place them where they are in the senate and the house. it's a very damaging to a game that damages the quality of the products. you start sprinkel and factories all over the place in order to gain votes and it becomes a bipartisan support network. not just republicans and democrats but -- >> guest: then it becomes even worse because they will say i will support your within a few support line and they do not benefit from the f-22 say i need this guy with me when the vote for something that affects my state. so it is a very hard kind of service of supporters you have to get past in the policy. >> host: there's a whole other part of your book where lockheed martin is trying to expand its

tentacles and one in yet of how they were going to run the welfare program for the state of texas can you briefly mention that? >> guest: they have gotten into a manner of information gathering surveillance. the work for the irs and the census, the work for the postal service, the train those transportation security agents who pat to down at the airport, they start with this texas project the idea being with welfare reform will be more leeway to privatize the functions including deciding who should get welfare in the first place, lockheed martin wanted to be the screening agent in texas -- >> host: they would actually look at welfare cases and decide this person is eligible, this person is not to read there will be a private contractor doing this. >> guest: exactly. and they have the same methods you're used to get a defense

contract so they hired the former aide to george w. bush who had the privatization texas law and became a lobbyist for them. this was investigated whether there was too much in the quid pro quo. nothing ever happened but it did elevate in the public mind and then the union that was going to be displaced by the privatization started running ads with the sound of a flushing toilet to say the company that brought us of these $3,000 toilet seat is now doing public service in texas and healing back to the scandal. the reagan era where they are right in the middle of that is overcharging the government, so they put a lot of money in and use the revolving door but ultimately they couldn't get over the top. they want to the federal government to run more welfare programs, medicare and they didn't get that waiver. they were up against ross perot's former company and there is this whole issue of they are

not a texas company. they just jump on the factory outside of boston. so they try to use the same methodology that they would use to get a five-year plan contract with in this kind of local politics they were a little bit lost. they couldn't get it done. but they still were doing job training in florida tracking down deadbeat dads in connecticut, running similar projects in california all of which ran into some significant data that wasn't coming off right. so the question now is going to be if they are running aspects of prices in your taxes and if they are involved in transportation security where are they going to be and for the company to be able to do all this. >> host: and others the question of their confidence. is this the same company that brought you the fighter that got thrown out of germany and another fighter that killed 85

german air force pilots, the c5 that lost the competition and became the most expensive boondoggle in american contract in history and these people want to come in and decide on welfare cases and send out checks to wounded veterans with a huge oversight committee on that their contract was canceled because they did such a terrible job of sending out just plain checks to wounded veterans. so the whole question of these corporations are not just their huge and using their money to stop their exodus pockets but what they deliver is a very shoddy quality whether it is a defense or welfare or whether it is sending out wounded veterans checks and that is why i feel so strongly that the subject matter of