THE WAR BUSINESS: THE INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN ARMAMENTS [The Washington Post, 10 June 1969]

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000300210003-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 15, 2004
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: June 10, 1969
• Content Type: NSPR

]300KS
"THE WAR BUSINESS: THE
INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN ARMAMENTS"
By George Thayer
(Simon and Schun,r, 417 on., $1.Vi)
Reviewed by Bernard D. Nossiter tike word, by' inclin ,
Nossitcr is a member of the National staff of The Wash--wrote an earlier book on the
'ington Post. Ile frequently reports on miiitarl/ and?lunatic cringes of American
industrial affairs, and a few ocher high priests politics. Here, ho examines,
of the Kennedy-Johnson era In loving detail, the lunatic
During the Civil War, :with lifting the world arms locator with side glimpses
,George Thayer reminds its, trade to a new level of in.
J. P. 1llorgan bought 5000, tensity. Thanks to their leg. Into the smaller, but equally ii
defective carbines for $3.50 acy, the United States is sys?? intensive efforts mounted in
t e m a t I C A 1 1 y spreading Jlrittain, France, the Soviet
each and sold them to the around the world $2 billion Union and other up-to-date -Union Army for $22. Al- a year in "conventional" nations. Combined, they sell
though the weapons shot off arms. 1$5 billion a year around the
the thumbs of many of their' Perhaps $500 to $600 mil. world, arming Portugal and
users, Morgan, of course, lion annually feeds the swol?.her Angolan rebels, Castro
len armories of Argentina, and anti-Castroitcs, Arabs
.was paid In full. Liberia, Saudi Arabia, Thai- and Israelis, Nugerians and I
One hundred years later, land and the other so-called Diafrans, Pakistanis and In-)
the Government's energetic developing nations whose dians with equal indiscrimi=';
'arms salesmen, from the appetite for weapons is insa- Inacy.
Pentagon and State Depart- tiablc. Indeed, as Thayer The trade, Ti ayer con-'i
l
udes, encourages arms
suggests, without the end-- e
`_- ment, persuaded Bonn to less supply of weapons from races among nations that ;
buy 250 Lockheed Starlight- the United States, its follow- have more pressing needs
err, nicknamed the "Widow., ers in the West and Its Sovi- 'And ensures that political
Maker" In Germany. Well PL-bloc imitators, it is tin. conflicts will be trans.
before the Dist crash tho', likely that India and Paki- formed into wars. Thanks to
%tan would have gone to war : modern exigencies, the old-
docile, pro-Washington Er- in 1065 and that Israel and fashioned merchants of
hard Government had her Arab neighbors would death have become extinct. A
fallen, leaving Lockheed be at each other's throats . "We now have detached,
free to go on to other for a fourth round. There cold-blooded mistakes made l
triumphs with its Cheyenne is a mordant symmetry in by bureaucrats."
helicopter and C?5A Galaxy. all this. The chief responsibility
Thanks to technology and Just as the wofld's most for this state of affairs,
b it r e a u c r a tic rationaliza- affluent democracy domi. Thayer demonstrates, lies .t
tion, as Thayer makes abun- nates the Government trade with the United States and
dantly clear, the modern in arms, so too it boasts the its arms aid program. His
arms trade can produce in. leading "private" weapons' suggestions for a more mod
?teresting political es well as merchant, the ubiquitous st, controlled approach
physical repercussions. At Samuel Cummings of Inter- hardly measure up to the di-
about the same time as the arms. With good reason, mcnsions of the entrenched
from the CIA and coneiude i that Hercules was required
was persuac~cd to
Britain
buy the American Sky1bolt that there Is at least a ra- ' to do more than clean out
missile for Its deterrent. markablo degree of coopcra the Augean stables.
? Thayer has written a.,
i When the program was ab- tion. It was Cummings' lucid, entertaining and well-
raptly 4i it not only agents who tipped off Wash? documented study on a
helped bring ng down the
friendly Macmillan Govern- ington that the Czechs were theme of some importance.
ment, it also convinced Gen. about to sell arms to Presi- Unhappily, Its information i
de Gaulle that the British dent Arbenx of Guatemala, ,'ond its conclusions are so
were litho more than an devastating to all Govern.
American satellite and unfit a discovery that prompted nrnts everywhere, "respan?
for membership in the Cora- the CIA to overthrow thasible" people have no choice
men Market. worthy with weapons sup. but to irnoro it. This Is a 1
'pity. In a less well organized
Thayer credits the comput- plied by Cummin
gs,
erized efficiency of Defcnsa world, Thayer 's work would,I ,
Secretary Robert Mc?' Thayer, a political scion- deserve that overworked do.,
?
THE WASHINGTON POST
Approved For Release 2004/1A/33jjlm4SUS)P88-01315R000300210003-6
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Namara, McGeorge BuA$vptlst ce 1 rt '~ s? 1266 1g~,1 t4' -ht $~- 80003002.10003-6
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