PUBLIC PAYS PRICE FOR ARMS LOBBYISTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100150015-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 15, 2012
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: March 27, 1990
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/15: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100150015-0
Public pays price
for arms lobbyists
The Washington Post
The New York Times
The Washington Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
Vermont eyes popped open when former CIA Date
Director William Colby came to the s a
campaign for a Town Meeting ballot item that
called for a 50 percent reduction in defense
spending.
After all, here is the nation's former top spook talking
about eliminating a good share of the agency's fuel. It
would be akin to a politician announcing that the next
campaign would be run without sound bites.
Colby's point, of course, is that we have no enemy and
our present defense needs can be met at half our present
cost. But it is more than that. He talks about the basic
need to restructure the defense industry in a way that
reflects true need.
His point was made nicely this week in the on-going
battle at Lockheed to see which group of individuals runs
one of the nation's largest arms companies. In a full page
ad in the New York Times the four leading pictures of
one slate of candidates included one politician and three
former defense officials. They were: Hans Mark, former
Secretary of the Air Force and former deputy ad-
ministrator of NASA, Gen. Earl T. O'Loughlin, former
commander of the Air Force, Sen. John Zbwer, the em-
battled nominee for defense secretary, and Admiral Elmo
R. Zumwalt, former Chief of Naval Operations and a
member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
This company is trying to sell more than expertise,
they are trying to sell access, they are trying to sell
political influence. These people do not know the first
thing about running a major corporation, but what they
do know is how to grease the skids so that Lockheed
would have the inside track on upcoming defense con-
tracts.
That is how the game works. This is what Colby and
other correct-thinking people object to. Instead of
decisions being based on need, they are being based on
influence, hype and fear. Every major arms company has
essentially the same array of former generals and
politicians who have been paid to turn lobbyists. These
are the people who know the skeletons. They know the
histories of past deals and which buttons to push. They
get their phone calls returned. They sound credible to
their former buddies in Congress. /
As we are learning, the taxpayers have paid a heavy
price for such influence and have gotten very little in
return as far as a national defense that meets our chang-
ing needs. f
CONTINUED
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Unfortunately, we will see more of this. Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev has- single-handedly put the world's
defense industry in a tail spin. For the arms industry,
peace is not prosperity. There are not enough contracts to
go around, just look at what has happened to General
Electric in Burlington. Competition for contracts will be-
come fierce and political influence will become the cut-
ting edge.
There are laws that prevent members of Congress and
-their staffs from immediately leaving their public jobs
and joining the industries they used to regulate. They
have to wait a year or so. It is a minimal
for
such an incestuous practice. It should be forever.
by Emerson Lynn
'I
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/15 CIA-RDP99-00418R000100150015-0