ITT'S SIZE, POLITICAL ACTIVITY GROW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000300350002-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 27, 2004
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: April 18, 1977
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000300350002-2
ARTICLE AI'.t''- , -,R '??D
THE VIASIIINGTCN POST
18 April 1977
Jack Anderson and,Les Whitten
r,TfIr- '9
Out of obscurity, International Tel-
ephone and Telegraph has leapfrogged
into the top ranks of international in-
dustrial corporations.
This spectacular growth was not
achieved by the traditional routes to
corporate success. TIT is not known
for developing new products or intro-
ducing revolutionary marketing tech-
niques. Nor has ITT produced a new
mousetrap, a cheaper one or a better
packaged one.
1"IT has soared to the industrial
heights by buying up existing compa-
nies at an, ever-accelerating pace. The
consortium has also laid political pipe-
lines that reach into the inner councils
of governments around the world.
In Washington, ITT opened an office
five blocks from the White House.
Like the great government depart-
ments, ITT had its Office of Congres-
sional Liaison and its Congressional
Relations Section. One side of the Con-
gressional Relations Section worked
the Democrats, the other the Re-
publicans.
We keep our own charts on corpo-
rate activity; they graph not the statis-
tics found in business journals, but the
corporate handouts to politicians. On
this indicator, ITT showed a rising
curve in the 1960s that kept pace with
its climb on Dow Jones.
The company gave away free plane
rides, cut-rate vacations, tourincars
"foe congressional junketeers, "legal
business-to the law firms of public offi
cials and other forms of gravy, includ-
ing a highly- organized program of
campaign contributions.
We exposed.most of this in the early,
1970s. We also reported that ITT had
developed a cozy relationship' with the
Nixon Administration. Together, they
iltical A
conspired to block the duly elected
President of Chile, Salvador Allende,
from assuming office. ITT officials at
first denied, but later admitted, their
complicity. They continued to insist
that corporate money hadn't been
used to influence political events in,
Chile. Then'ITT Chairman Harold Ge-
neen confessed that 5350,000 may have
been funneled to Allende's opponents.
Meanwhile, ITT has faded from the
headlines. But many conscientious
stockholders have been working qui-
etly to clean -up the company. More
than 150 church groups, for.. example,
own. corporate stock. They have, ban-
ded together under the Interfaith Cen-
ter for Corporate Responsibility to
demand a detailed account of all
"political contributions, bribes and
other questionable payments of $2,000
or more that may have been funneled
to Chilean political candidates" by IT['.
Slipping in the backdoor of the Se-
curities and Exchange Commission,
ITT executives tried to get. excused
from publishing this request in their
annual proxy statement. But-the com-
mission turned thumbs down and or-
dered them to publish the Chilean res-
olution.
An ITT. spokesman said the company
wanted to omit the resolution from its
proxy statement because it was similar
to another resolution.
Approved For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000300350002-2