diplomat working to restore relations with libya, then went to work for construction giant bechtel. among his duties, developing business in libya. mark allen was a top british spy master dealing with gadhafi and later became a consultant to bp on a $900 million oil deal in libya. allen and bp declined comment. in a statement bechtel said the company's business in libya has always been in accordance with u.s. laws and regulations and that their work there began after the sanctions were lifted and before mr. welch joined the company. both firms recently suspended their operations in libya. >> it's absolutely disgusting. and i and other pan-am family members have said many times that doing business with terrorists is not only the wrong thing to, do it's bad business. >> reporter: bernstein's late husband investigated nazi war criminals for the justice department. she says he kept a small sign in his office. >> "the law sometimes sleeps but it never dies." >> reporter: a credo that she hopes will ultimately hold true for gadhafi. michael isikoff, nbc news, washington. >>> up next here

after succeeding in opening doors to libya's markets welch went on to become the vice president of bechtel a corporation that is currently building a new car plant in guess where libya talk about a revolving door even in a nation like iran american corporations find a way a tech company honeywell has received twelve billion dollars in federal contracts but has been routinely doing business in iran a crema troll in factories and selling security equipment to the regime through a british subsidiary and they're not alone hundreds of corporations do the same thing with other pariah regimes all over the world for example before he became vice president dick cheney was c.e.o. of halliburton which probably way was i was bankrupt when he became vice president and all these contracts for the record i kind of brought it back but halliburton at the time when cheney was running it was then doing business with both iran and iraq while both were supposedly under both the us and un sanctions aren't these guys traitors but that's the obvious stuff more subtle are dictatorships like china and vietnam that

decisions that were made to save money for the be contractors, and after all, he was an employee of bechtel and henry kaiser and the other contractors. to save money, he would do things like run diesel and gasoline-powered equipment underground, and scores of men died from carbon monoxide poisoning. they didn't get compensation for their -- their families didn't get compensation for their deaths, they didn't get compensation for their injuries because when they were brought out and brought to the clinicsing and hospitals, the doctors who were working for the contractors diagnosed them as having suffered from pneumonia which was not a construction injury. well, frank crowe knew about this, he condoned it, he oversaw it. so that's the other aspect of it. he was a three dimensional man, he got this dam built, there's no taking that away from him. his men loved him because they weren't allowed to see his contribution to the conditions that they worked under. >> one final note on that, michael, the first -- there were 112 deaths associate with the the construction of the dam, the first one was a

did in baseball or jeff did with his co or nicole at the sony corporation or other people in the bechtel corporation or marriott and how the direct line from the savings and edward bennett williams and what he taught these disciples has met in terms of american business and law and made this a tremendously unique firm and in a lot of other ways i pointed out unlike firms they don't take lateral partners for the simple, they don't engage in self promotion or have offices outside of other places. so this sort of the book is about and kind of like a sort of unlike the one you might get from the comment from arnold rothstein and the entire board what. and i think my characters are all exemplified in the best in the american profession which is sometimes difficult to say because when you go from writing free trade publication as i did at the "legal times" and american lawyer although american lawyer was a sort of antiprepublication to writing for the general-interest magazine like a washingtonian you are expected to handle lawyers all the time and not give them much of a break but there are s