Brotherhood of Arms: General Dynamics and the Business of Defending America PDF
Preview Brotherhood of Arms: General Dynamics and the Business of Defending America
General Dynamics and the _ Business of Detending America FPT $14.95 Brotherhood of Arms is the story of General Dynamics, the most controversial defense contractor in the United States. It is also a fascinating insider’s look at the vitally impor- tant weapons industry GD has come to dominate. By focusing on the successes and failures of General Dy- namics, Brotherhood of Arms describes in human terms how most huge defense contractors sell their weapons to the Pentagon. It takes readers into Defense Department con- ference rooms, where billion-dollar weapons programs are nurtured or killed; into corporate headquarters, where negotiating strategies are shaped; into Congress, where political battles are fought and bitter contract disputes are settled; into grand-jury hearing rooms, where high-priced executives are accused of fraud; into GD’s top-secret sub- marine yard in Connecticut, its aircraft factory in Texas, its cruise-missile plant in California, and its tank operations in the Midwest. General Dynamics is an extraordinarily successful com- pany, whose sales to the Defense Department in fiscal 1984 were nearly $6 billion. More important, it is the only defense contractor that currently sells major weapons systems to each of the three military services—M-1 tanks to the Army, nuclear-powered Trident and attack submarines as well as sea-launched cruise missiles to the Navy, and F.16 fighters and cruise missiles to the Air Force. Despite its enormous sales and healthy profits, GD has emerged during the past year as the nation’s most reviled defense contractor. It has been accused of improperly bill- ing the government for lavish or unjustified expenses, giv- ing jewelry and illegal gifts to Admiral Hyman Rickover before he retired, withholding from its stockholders vital information about cost overruns and schedule delays that plagued its shipyard, and submitting fraudulent bids and inflated claims to the Navy. Most of these accusations stem from one man, P. Takis Veliotis, a former general manager at GD’s submarine yard and member of the company’s board of directors. Veliotis fled the United States a few years ago, shortly before he was indicted for allegedly receiving more than $1 million in illegal shipyard kickbacks. Tapes of secretly recorded telephone conversations between Veliotis and his former GD colleagues have inspired half a dozen congressional investi- (continued on back flap) Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/brotherhoodofarm0000good Brotherhood of Arms Brotherhood of Arms General Dynamics and the Business of Defending America by Jacob Goodwin Eimes BooKs Copyright © 1985 by Jacob Goodwin All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Times Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Goodwin, Jacob B. Brotherhood of arms. Includes index. 1. General Dynamics Corporation. 2. Munitions— United States. I. Title. HD9743.U5G464 1985 338.76234'0973 85-40268 ISBN 0-8129-1151-2 Manufactured in the United States of America 98765432 First Edition My son, Gabriel, was born and my father, Paul, died while I was completing this book. I dedicate it to both of them, with bright hopes for the future and cherished memories of the past.
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