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GE has major investments around the
world, which it expects the Pentagon to protect. It is also a charger
member of the military-industrial complex.
A member in good standing, I might add!
GE is the country's third largest military contractor, raking in
billions of dollars every year. It produces parts for every nuclear
weapon in the U.S. arsenal, makes jet engines for military aircraft, and
creates all kinds of profitable electronic gadgets for the Pentagon.
It's also the company that secretly released millions of curies of
deadly radiation from the Hanford nuclear weapons facility in Washington
state and produced faulty nuclear power plans that dot the U.S.
countryside.
"We bring good things to life!" -- GE
Top executives at GE have long been aware
that in order to keep billions of Pentagon dollars flowing into its
coffers it was necessary to build public support for massive military
spending. In 1950, President Truman named Charles Wilson, GE's board
chairman, to head the Office of Defense Mobilization. In that capacity,
Wilson told members of the Newspaper Publishers Association: [148]
"If the people were not convinced [that the Free World is in mortal
danger] it would be impossible for Congress to vote the vast sums now
being spent to avert this danger. With the support of public opinion, as
marshalled by the press, we are off to a good start. It is our job --
yours and mine -- to keep our people convinced that the only way to keep
disaster away from our shores is to build up America's might." --
Charles Wilson, 1950.
(Of course, Wilson and his buddies at GE expected to get their hands on
a hefty chunk of those vast sums.)
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