In a way, this meeting in the bowels of the Pentagon was all for show, a kind of mating ritual between the government and its favorite contractor. But like his other advisers, she bowed to the inevitability of saying yes and fully entered into the campaign. And that although she took personal risks to campaign in the south for civil rights, she couldnt quite figure out what to make of Black protests in American cities or dissent against the war. Because the offshore terminals were such easy targets for Iranian gunboats, in 1981 Saddam signed a $2.5 million contract with Halliburton to build a feeder pipeline from the terminals out into the Gulf where the crude oil could be safely sluiced into wary tankers. 4: EntangledNetwork television comes calling for Lady Bird, as the president of ABC News convinces a reluctant first lady to host a documentary about her beautification work in DC. The purpose of this conclave was to devise a project that would come to be known as RIO or Restore Iraq Oil. First lady Lady Bird Johnson is at work seated at her desk in the White House in Washington, D.C., 1964. Finally, he was able to use the war to further his political career and gain more control over the government. But no. There was little doubt about who was going to land the deal. Lady Bird Johnson holds artwork while greeting a young girl during her tour of Appalachia in 1967. The result was not just a slow down in the delivery of fuel and military supplies, but a greatly enhanced risk to the lives of Halliburtons drivers, who were becoming easily identifiable targets for the growing insurgency in Iraq. Lady Bird Johnson was a first lady -- but her audio diaries reveal so much more. This prototype evolved to become the Bell Model 47---the first helicopter to receive FAA Certification. Johnson also prevailed upon the Bell Helicopter Company, which would soon relocate to Texas, to loan him a chopper for his campaign. Archival materials from: LBJ Library; JFK Library; Miller Center; U.S. National Archives; Universal Newsreel; WFAA-TV Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza; KLIF broadcast from November 22, 1963 courtesy of Cumulus Media; Andrew West audio report on June 5, 1968 courtesy of Westwood One; NBC5/KXAS Television News Collection; University of North Texas Special Collections; Jane Jacobs (Books and Authors Luncheon); WNYC, courtesy of NYC Municipal Archives. Then in 1999 Halliburton struck gold once again in the Balkans when Clinton went to war against Serbia over Kosovo. He got a state judge in Texas to place an injunction against the ballots from Alice. Of course, the deal had sublime benefits for the Clinton administration as well. When Halliburton bought Dresser, it also acquired the companys enormous asbestos liability, a burden which Cheney assured company stockholders would be resolved without material effect. Its the kind of casual lie covering a metastasizing problem that would become a Cheney signature as vice president. This neat trick was followed by a huge cost-plus contract to build the US military base on Guam in the south Pacific, a deal that started out with a price tag of $25 million but soon ballooned to more than $250 million. The initial price-tag was pegged at $23.5 million, with Brown & Root guaranteed a profit of $1.2 million. This thread is archived New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast 24K 675 comments Emhoff joined a long line of female political spouses who have struggled, in a larger sense, to figure out where they should be and what they should do. On a trip to two New England colleges to give speeches supporting their new environmental studies programs, Lady Bird is confronted by outspoken dissent from both students and faculty who walk out of her speeches, picket her presence and circulate letters denouncing the war in Vietnam. He moved to Texas in the mid-1890s and opened a store in Karnack, Harrison County. Most notably, Halliburtons US government contracts bulged from $1.2 billion to $2.3 billion under Cheneys reign as CEO. Johnson, however, flew back to Houston the night after his destruction of Olds on a private jet owned by Brown & Root. Then an unexpected thing happened. ABC News will kick off Womens History Month with its new podcast "In Plain Sight: Lady Bird Johnson," co-produced with Best Case Studios and hosted by author Julia Sweig. In 1940, the former road paving firm won a huge contract to build the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, a complex of runways, hangars, barracks and command centers sprawling across 2,000 acres of swamp and scrubland on the gulf coast of Texas. They figured he could do them less damage in Washington. The companys Kosovo operations were rife with fraud. The congress granted to the administration of Lyndon Baines Johnson for 1965 $700 million for the expected ramping up of a direct American military role. 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 LBJ was pronounced the winner of the primary by 87 votes and then went on to crush his Republican opponent in November. Not my thing. Again, the race was ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court by the intervention of a single justice, Hugo Black. In reality, of course, the privatization of military logistics operations was neither cost-conscious nor particularly efficient. 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. He shed much of his New Dealer image and reemerged as a Southern populist, touting his votes against an anti-lynching bill, against Trumans bill to outlaw the poll tax, and for the union-busting Taft-Hartley Act. Speaking of Halliburtons logistics work for the Pentagon in the Balkans, Cheney said, the first person to greet our soldiers as they arrive and the last one to wave good-bye is one our employees. Halliburton: the Alpha and Omega of Pentagon contractors. Ballot boxes were bought by both campaigns. Cheney pursued a company that no one else really wanted and to compound his blunder he paid an outrageous price for it. In 1943, the year Lady Bird Johnson purchased KTBC, the Federal Communications Commission, which reviewed all broadcast-license transfers, was close All of this got LBJ close, but quite not close enough, to assure him of an outright victory. WebLyndon B. Johnson: Foreign Affairs. And on her return to Washington, a sex scandal involving Lyndons closest aide presents an October surprise that could easily upend the election. Feeling the urgency, Lady Bird is looking for ways to make beautification have more impact for the people who need it most. On Election Night 1980, Nancy was taking a bath, not expecting the race to be called before the polls closed in California. Did Lyndon B. Johnson profit financially from the Vietnam War? Birds a true believer in progressive causes -- civil rights, environmentalism -- but shes also the product of her own generation and background. But Nancy had no appetite for cozy calm in the White House. The centerpiece of this enterprise was the Marshall Ford Dam outside Austin and the company that had won the contract to build the dam was none other than Brown & Root. The biggest project by far was its $220 million contract to build the mammoth Air Force Base at Phan Rang, which Halliburton constructed on top of some the most beautiful Cham temple complexes in Vietnam. The company had gone into debt by more than $1.5 million in order to purchase the equipment needed to build the dam. TSHA | Taylor, Thomas Jefferson II A GAO investigation also revealed that Halliburton was billing the Pentagon for cleaning offices in US bases the Balkans four times a day. Ep. By 1968, the United States had 548,000 troops in Vietnam and had In July, the Pentagon discreetly let slip that it had awarded Halliburton a fat new contract for yet more logistics work in Iraq. Indeed, a few weeks before Saddam sent his tanks into Kuwait, the Iraqi government had paid Halliburton $57 million for its work on the Mina Al-Bakr terminal and a seismographic project to help the Iraqi Oil Exploration Company enhance its exploration technology. First stop Somalia, where Halliburton set up shop providing fuel, food, laundry services and even morticians for US troops. Cheney swiftly announced two goals for the company: make it the top Pentagon contractor and greatly expand its contractual relationships with foreign governments. Lady Bird Johnson (born December 22, 1912) is famous for being political wife. Only six months into the occupation of Iraq, Halliburtons fleets of trucks began to breakdown due to lack of spare parts and shoddy upkeep. Then, in the mid-1940s, opportunity came calling when KTBC, Austins first radio station, went on the market. That she understood early on that the Vietnam War might well destroy her husbands presidency. Unlike her conflict-averse husband, she played the ruthless enforcer, conducting feuds and engineering firings. Lyndon Johnson belonged to a generation of men who regarded sex as a perk of power. Cheney didnt have much experience in the corporate world before becoming Halliburtons chieftain and his tenure there shows it. The money was delivered in $100 bills stuffed into grocery bags. And yet, after nearly two years in office, the Johnsons still find themselves in the shadow of the glamorous Kennedys, when a high profile event at the White House brings the Johnsons their first taste of public protest and bad press. And an increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam begins to overshadow just about everything else. Evidence of the systematic accounting fraud at Halliburton during the Cheney years has now been marshaled into a class action suit by Halliburton shareholders that may even yet doom the company. During the Vietnam War, Lady Bird woke to hear President Johnson talking to himself in the early-morning darkness. Jeffrey St. Clairis editor of CounterPunch. The tricky part was trying to find the right subcontractor. 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. In fact, the company patriarch, Erle P. Red Halliburton, despised the federal government. Meanwhile, in that same crucial year of 1919, the other half of Halliburton was also beginning to take shape as two friends from San Marcos, Texas, Herman Brown and Dan Root, formed a road paving company that would eventually become one of the worlds largest construction firms.