One of its [Lockheed Martin] early patrons was Richard Russell of Georgia, who was so respected by his peers that the Senate named its office building after him.
Russell was legendary in his ability to use his lengthy chairmanship of the Senate Armed services Committee to bring government spending into his district.
In August 1965 while the Vietnam War was raging, Russell began making sounds like an antiwar protester. He told a national television audience during a Meet the Press interview that if an election were held, Vietnam would certainly elect Ho Chi Minh as its president. He lectured the Senate: "Whenever the people go to calling their leader 'Uncle,' you better watch out .... They have a man in whom they have explicit confidence, you are dealing with a very dangerous enemy." By November, Lockheed's plant in Marietta, Georgia won a huge contract for the monstrous C5-A transport planes (Fite 1991, pp. 443-45; Goldsmith 1993, p. 138).
After the award of the contract, Russell's public doubts about the war suddenly evaporated. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com