CALL TO ARMS 'THE WAR BUSINESS: THE INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN ARMAMENTS'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200770010-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Sequence Number: 10
• Content Type: NEWSPAPER CLIPPING

Approved For Release tft?6 I fNG? !-f? 'J88-01350R000200770010-9
BOOKS
" U JA 1969
Cad 11' ~~-o A rm
"THE WAR BUSINESS: THE 25X1
INTERNATIONAL, TRADE IN ARMAMENTS"
By George Thayer
(Simon end Schuster, 417 PP., 11,96)
by? Inclination,
Bernard D. Nossiter the word
d L
i
R
,
y
ewe
ev
earlier book on the
Nossitcr is a member of the'National staff of TheWash? lunatic far e of American
inpton Post. Iis frequently reports on military and,
industrial affairs. ann a few other high priests'politics. Here, he examines,
'of the Kennedy-Johnson era In loving detail, the lunatic
icenter with side glimpses
During the Civil War-, tade lifting e tnew he leworld vel arms
George Thayer reminds 115, tensity. Thanks to their leg- into the smaller, but equally1 of in. J. Morgan bought 5000 acy, the United States Is Sys- .intensive efforts mounted in
defective carbines for $3.50; t e m a tic a I 1 y spreading.13rittain, 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 j
arms. 1$5 billion a year around the
though the weapons shot off Perhaps $500 to $600 mil- world, arming Portugal and
the thumbs of many of their lion annually feeds the swol- her Angolan rebels, Castro
users, Morgan, of course,. lea armories of Argentina, and anti-Castroites, Arabs
,was paid In full. Liberia, Saudi Arabia, Thai- and Israelis, Nigerians and .d
!' One hundred years later, land and the other so-called Biafrans, Pakistanis and In-,;
developing nations whose dians with equal indiscrimi- ?'
tile Government's energetic appetite for weapons 1s lass- Inacy. '
arcon.
'arms salesmen, from the tiable. Indeed, as Thayer The s trade, Thayer
ms
. .Pentagon and State Depart- suggests, witfhout the end- ? nations that
ment, persuaded Bonn to less supply of weapons from races among npress ing nthas .!
buy 250 Lockheed Starlight- the United States, its follow.: and Geus wail that trans-
e.t?bioc imitators, it Is un-
Maker" in Germany. Well likely that India and Paki- formed into vars. Thanks to
before the 91st crash, tho'' stars would have gone to war , modern exigencies, the old- i
docile, pro-Washington Er- in 1965 and that Israel and fashioned merchants of.,
hard Government had her Arab neighbors would death have become extinct.
be at each other's throats ? "We now have' detached,
freers, leaving Lockhr for a fourth round. There cold?i1looded mistakes made
free to on to Cheyenne other is a mordant symmetry in by bureaucrats."
The chief responsibility
triumphs with its
Galaxy. all this.
helicopter and C-5A Galaxy d Just as the world's most for this state of affairs,
a u r technology affluent democracy domi~ Thayer demonstrates, lies ?f
b it Thanks
tio on r e a u c r a t is s bun nates the Government trade with the United States and
l, as Thayer makes a shun' ? its arms aid program. His
the modern in arms, so too it boasts they
suggestions fora more mod
dantly clear
"
"
,
weapons
private
arms trade can produce In. leading
merchant, the ubiquitousst, controlled approach
teresting political as well as Samuel Cummings of Inter- hardly measure Up to the di-
physical repercussions. At arms. With good reason, mensions of the entrenched
about the Kama time as the 7 payer doubts that Inter- Ystem he has described.
unfortunate Germans were 131t then it is not recorded ? .
Is all Uhat distinct
s
.
being touted on Lockheed, .arm
from the CIA and conclude that Hercules was required
Britain was persuaded Lo to do more than clean out
buy the American SkYbolt that there is at least a ro- the Augean stables.
missile for its deterrent. markable degree of coopera- Thayer has written a.!
When the program was ab- lion. It was Cummings' , lucid, entertaining and well-
on a':
t only
d
t
d
u
y
s
? ruptly 'halted, It no
agents who tipped off Wash- documente
helped bring down the Ington that the Czechs were theme of some importance.
friendly Tiacmillan Govern- Unhappily, its information
'meet, it also convinced Gen. about to sell arms to Pr?esl? ,end its conclusions are so
de Gaulle that the British dent Arbenz of Guatemala, devastating to all Govern-
were little more than an a discovery that prompted llcnts everywhere, "respon-
nd unfit
no choice
G
llit
l
?'
e e
1ave
e
peop
American sate
the CIA to overthrow thatV"lble
for membership in the Com-,worthy with weapons sup- but to ignore It. This Is a
I
men Market. (pity. In a less well organized
Thayer credits the comput- plied by Cummints? world, Tdrayer'a work would,
MORUCIDIF,
+
erized efficiency of Defense, Thayer, a apolitical scien- deserve that overworked do.
;II
Secretary Robert Me tist'by ,taming and a journ- 9criptian, A book, of great
Namara, McGeorge Bundy importance., ,, ? ? . ,?, ,..~d
? alis In the beat sense e2, Approved For Release 2006/06/19: CIA-R?P88-0135OR000200770010-9