ITT REVISITED
Jacobs, Theodore J.
ITT REVISITED America, Inc., by Morton Mintz I and Jerry S. Cohen. The Dial Press. I 424 pp. $10. 91 reviewed by Theodore J. Jacobs Every so often a book comes along which anticipates a political...
...They supply devastating studies of the processes and results of economic concentration—inflation, ineffective and unsafe products, occupational disease and injury, to mention just a few...
...but Richard G. Kleindienst, Mitchell's top deputy, overruled McLaren and had the case removed to the Federal Trade Commission...
...Among literally hundreds of examples of corporate abuse, we are reminded that ITT's current intervention in campaign finance—with its $200,000 or $400,000 (or is it $600,000...
...The lesson is also the same—if we are to avoid the consequences of concentrated economic power, we must find new ways to diffuse power, to give initiatory rights to those without power or, at least, to make power more accountable...
...Senator Fred Harris of Oklahoma did not last long as a Presidential candidate, but he announced a platform, for the first time in a Presidential campaign as far as I know, of breaking up monopolies and oligopolies...
...91 reviewed by Theodore J. Jacobs Every so often a book comes along which anticipates a political event or which forecasts an idea whose time is ripe...
...sets the stage, almost eerily, for virtually each element of the current International Telephone & Telegraph-Dita Beard-Richard Klein-dienst caper...
...In the past ten years, the $6 billion octopus has acquired 101 corporations in the United States and some sixty in foreign countries...
...We may not achieve these ends immediately, but we can thank the authors of America, Inc...
...for advancing the dialogue substantially...
...the huge corporations that...
...Among the answers they suggest to the problems which beset us is Federal chartering for corporations...
...promise to the 1972 Republican National Convention—is but the most recent adventure in a long, sordid history of the uniquely American mixture of money and politics...
...Only Dita Beard is missing...
...Mr...
...Richard W. McLaren, head of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, opposed the merger and wanted to seek a temporary restraining order...
...practically run our lives," and Senator George McGovern promises "a major redistribution of income...
...ITT is the quintessence of conglomerate...
...They deal with the special role of the communications media and the effects of concentration in those industries, the vicious cycle of campaign finance, and the roles of the Congress, the executive, and the regulatory agencies in ordering economic power...
...Mintz and Cohen report a startling incident which came to light in connection with the Bobby Baker investigation...
...But perhaps partly as a result of this book, and surely helped along by exposure of ITT's conduct, we may be on the threshold of some significant changes...
...Jacobs is executive director of the Center for Study of Responsive Law in Washington, D.C...
...The final parallel between ITT's current and past gaffes is the fascinating tale of its adventure in British and Canadian internal affairs in connection with operation "Deep Freeze," the proposed submarine cable system between the United States, Canada, Greenland, and the United Kingdom...
...Morton Mintz, the nonpareil investigative reporter for The Washington Post, and Jerry S. Cohen, the former chief counsel of the Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee, have written an encyclopedia of corporate irresponsibility which should be required reading for those who would understand the antics of ITT, the Justice Department, and the White House in the present mess...
...It employs more than 550,000 people, including its own foreign policy and foreign intelligence operatives...
...Attorney General John Mitchell disqualified himself because the Nixon-Mitchell law firm had represented Warner-Lambert...
...Mintz and Cohen set forth in textbook detail the pervasive interchange between corporate and political power which makes new answers imperative...
...The outmoded legal fiction of a world-embracing corporation such as GM or ITT being governed by the laws of a state such as Delaware should long ago have gone the way of the dodo bird...
...You will be expected to recover the amount by covering it up in your traveling expense account...
...In the 1964 attempt "to translate economic power into political power at the international level," the cast included Harold Macmillan in London and Lester Pearson in Ottawa instead of Henry Kissinger in Washington and Salvador Allende in Chile, but the arrogance, the disdain, the "money talks" toughness are the same...
...The details of this 1964 version of the current Chile intervention came to light in an exhibit filed in the case opposing the too-soon-forgotten attempt of ITT to acquire the American Broadcasting Company...
...The deja vu is uncanny in Mintz and Cohen's description of the cast of characters in the merger of Parke, Davis and Warner-Lambert...
...Harold S. Geneen, then as now ITT president and board chairman, is reported to have importuned an ITT executive to contribute $1,200 to Lyndon Johnson's campaign for Vice President in 1960...
...The authors call it "a nice victory" for the President's former law firm and for his close friend, Warner-Lambert's honorary chairman Elmer H. Bobst...
...They add, "Kleindienst . . . did not need to be told about the special identities of the law firm, its client, its client's honorary chairman and the chairman's friends in Washington...
...The executive balked but was advised that the contribution "can be financed for you by the company if necessary...
...As Mintz and Cohen make abundantly clear, this kind of economic power is political power, arrogant and unaccountable as any feudal barony...
...Senator Edmund Muskie is campaigning with pledges "to fight...
...As recently as a few months ago, even this eminently reasonable suggestion might have been thought of as Utopian...
...It has the will and resources to acquire any kind of talent it wants, including the former CIA chief, John A. McCone, who is on its board of directors...
Vol. 36 • May 1972 • No. 5
