Friends in High Places

Download or read book Friends in High Places written by Laton McCartney and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 1989-04-08 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Riveting . . . exemplifies how business works by exploiting personal connections.”—Businessweek The Bechtel Group is a private company that shuns the limelight, yet it is one of the prime movers-and-shakers in the global economic arena. Founded by self-made millionaire Warren A. Bechtel as a risk-taking construction and engineering firm, the multibillion-dollar, multinational conglomerate is responsible for constructing the Hoover Dam, laying the Alaskan oil pipeline, and building half of the world’s nuclear power plants, for starters. But Bechtel did not complete these ambitious projects on its own; it did so with the help of such “friends” as Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Dwight Eisenhower, and former employees George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger. Bechtel’s access to high-ranking government officials is unparalleled in the private sector. And with that access comes the temptation to accept favors and influence policy. Business journalist Laton McCartney combines painstaking research and powerful reporting to tell here, for the first time, the explosive inside story of what really goes on at the company that changed the face of the globe. “McCartney has made an important contribution to understanding a powerful U.S. corporation and American business history.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer