‘100% and they will trample on all human law’

Is there a death merchants’ international

these were involved in big accidents. Not a

By ERNST HENRI

The question in the heading is more like.
the title of a sensational motion picture
script. Can one seriously believe that in
present-day conditions there is a secret
international association of arms manu-
facturers, one engaged above all in the
manufacture of mass destruction
weapons? An association of manufactur-
ers bound by mutual protection and sec-
retly pursuing a joint policy?

Yes, one can. We have indisputable
facts at our disposal. All the big business-
men of the West are aware of them.

The association we have in mind has no
official name, nor is it listed in a directory
or business handbook. It does not exist
_ Officially. However, in actual fact it has
been functioning for several years, and
behind the scenes in the West it wields
considerable power. Judging by every-
thing, thing i hasbeen constant interfering,

though inconspicuously, in international

Who are members of this international
association?

Those who reap the highest profits in
the capitalist world today, profits from
trade in missiles, military aircraft,
atom-powered submarines, space vehi-
cles and all sorts of electronic equip-
ment.

Today nothing attracts big business so
much as the marketing of'merchandise
whose use may exterminate mankind.
Every stock jobber takes this into ac-
count now.

Fantastic Sums

A record rate of profit which some-
times reaches 100% and more comes
precisely from this source today. The
arms race urges the governments of the
capitalist states to spend, every year, a
huge share of the national income on
such things. That is why the American,
West German, British, French and other
corporations which have taken over the
manufacture of mass destruction
weapons are at the top of the list of the
most profitable international
monopolies.

For instance, it has been calculated
that in the third quarter of 1977 the profits
of Litton Industries, a U.S. arms man-
-ufacturing concern, increased 547% as
compared to the same period of 1976, the
profits of Northrop Co. — 483%, Lock-
heed Corp. — 141% and Fairchild Corp.
— 140%. The overall increase in the pro-
fits of the U.S. aerospace industries was
52%.

Until treaties on the reduction of ar-
maments and on disarmament have
been signed the fantastic growth of pro-
fits of the arms-manufacturing concerns
will not be stopped.

The American economist G. Stigler

writes that maximization of profits is the
most powerful, most general and most

Viable of all forces governing the be-

havior of the enterpreneur.

Marxists have known this for a long
time. In volume one of ‘‘Capital’’ Marx
quoted from Quarterly Review, a British
journal, which describes the entrep-
reneurs’ urge for profit in the following
terms:

““A certain 10% will ensure its
employment anywhere; 20% certain.will
produce eagerness; 50%, positive au-
dacity; 100% will make it ready to tram-
ple on all human laws; 300%, and there
is no crime at which it will scruple, nora
risk it will not run, even to the chance of
being hanged.”’

The key motive here is maximum -

profits. That is why the owners of the
arms-manufacturing concerns are pre-
pared to go to extremes to keep up and
expand the output of armaments which
help them reap fantastic’sums.

It is worth noting that the biggest of
the military-industrial corporations
whose turnover exceeds one thousand
million dollars a year have of late joined
hands across the state frontiers. How-
ever, this does not ‘stop them from com-
peting against each other in their drive
for some contracts. One thing does not
stand in the way of the other. Here are a
few examples.

Across Frontiers

The biggest and politically most in-
fluential military-industrial group in the
USA is the Rockefeller group of bil-
lionaires. Among the concerns produc-

ing mass destruction weapons, which

stand close to the Rockefeller group are
such gigantic corporations as
McDonnell-Douglass (MD), Boeing and
United Technologies (UT).

MD supplies the Pentagon with super-
sonic Phantom bombers and F-15
fighters. The latter are considered to be
the best in the West. MD is preparing to
turn out cruise missiles.

Boeing is the chief contractor in the
manufacture of Minuteman inter-
continental ballistic missiles. It is now
participating in the drafting of. plans, for
the production of cruise missiles.

UT manufactures aircraft and rocket
engines and military helicopters.

In 1976 the turnover of these three
monopolies exceeded $12,500,000,000.
They employed 264,000 blue-and-white
collar workers. The Pentagon cannot
conceive its activities without these
three corporations.

MD entered big business with the help
of a scandalous transaction. In the heat of
the cold war in the mid-1950s the company
started to supply the U.S. Navy Depart-

ment with Demon jet fighters. Twelve of

M 4 Sherman tank $215 thousand

B-29 bomber $3.1. million

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—June 30, 1978—Page 6

single Demon fighter was fit for use. This

_cost the government several hundred mil-

lion dollars. Then it turned out that liter-
ally a day after his retirement, Admiral
Harrison, who was in charge of these de-
liveries in the Department and who spared
no pains to prevent the cancelling of the
ill-fated orders, became vice-president of
that corporation.

The scandal has not prevented the
Pentagon from doing business with the
company. Last year MD moved to the
top of the list of Pentagon ‘contractors.
That is how big munitions business is
run. The drive for fantastic profits pre-
vails over everything elt.

‘Meanwhile, in West Germany

Let us take a look at Western Europe.
The Méesserschmitt-Bélkow-Blohm Co.
(MBB) is now the most successful
arms-manufacturing concern in West
Germany.

After the war this firm swallowed up
the Junkers works. It belongs to the same
Messerschmitts and Bélkows, these
families being joined by the
Thyssen-Blohm group.

However, in the beginning MBB was
chiefly engaged in the manufacture of
fighter planes. In the recent period it has
also been manufacturing missiles, space
vehicles, combat helicopters. At present
it is completing its preparations for put-
ting into serial production the Tornado
multipurpose combat aircraft which is to
become the main plane in the NATO air
force. A very recent report said that
MBB was completing work on a ‘‘won-

‘ der bomb” characterized by a ‘‘great

scattering effect, a new surface effect
weapon:””

But that is not all. Several months after
the reports on the Tornado and the
“wonder bomb’’.it became known. that
the MBB ‘of the FRG, and
McDonnel-Douglas of: .the USA, had
signed an agreement on the joint
development and manufacture of “‘new
types’’ of combat aircraft.

We could add that MD is not the only
Ainerican corporation with which MBB
has established ties. Even before this
move 9.7% of the stock of the Mes-
serschmitt Co. was already in the hands
of the Boeing Corp.

That was how one of the subdivisions
of the death merchants’ _international
was formed.

The Ring Around-NATO

Another subdivision.

A junior branch of the Rockefellers
founded way back in the 1930s the Un-
ited Aircraft Co. (now known as United
Technologies — UT). Currently employ-
ing 133,000 workers, in 1976 United
Technologies was second on the list of
US arms-manufacturing concerns with
respect to the size of its turnover.

UT's business is so profitable that
once the company paid out in a single

_ year a 40% dividend and then on top of

that a nearly 100% ‘‘super-dividend.’’ It
is worth noting that the owners were also
issued new, shares free of charge. How
does this arms-manufacturing corpora-
tion which virtually bathes in gold oper-
ate? ;

Its partners in the business are scat-
tered in all of the capitalist countries en-
gaged i in the arms race.

For instance, in the FRG UTi is a part-
ner of. the Vereinigte flugtechnische
Werke GMbH-Fokker (FFW) Co., the
second biggest aerospace company in
the country. One part of the shares be-
longs to UT, another part — to the Dutch
arms-manufacturing concern — the
Fokker Co., and the third part — to Nord
Aviacion, a French aircraft construction
enterprise.

In addition to this, UT itself
lished industrial or financial
SNECMA, a French arms
ing concern. Fokker of the N

SABCA of Belgium and Mit

Japan. Since the Pentagon s

"Japan to engage in militarizal tio

old time military-industrial co
Japan enthusiastically joined i
Here too the profits from
are collected in the same pot!
shared out on the basis of defini
lations. Mutual protection is?
in the game. If a Western capil
ages to become a big s
such transnational arms-mafl
‘monopolies, he is sure to
multimillionaire. ;
NATO is clasped in this ™
tightly as the Pentagon. Some
difficult to establish what P
NATO politics — the #
“‘strategic’* plans of the Atlal!
als or the interests of big’
munitions. Judging by evé

would be correct to say thal

€

groups of interests merge into

_ral whole.

The present author has ™,
only a few of the leading arms’
turing concerns in various
However, dozens of others a
volved. Thus, the. Monsanto
atomic and chemical concem”,
the Morgan group, which has#%y
of $4,270,000,000 (!), has.
plants in 21 countries. The. $
Corp. is connected with the Be
and atomic and chemical fir
Germany. The Dassault Co.
which manufactures bombers
age fighter planes cooperates
British Aircraft Co., a British ™

cs

the Belgian SABCA, the .

and the West German Dorniél

soon. <
We are loking atthe cues
racy which is being hatched

eyes against detente. Those wh
peace cannot remain in ‘
scheming. I am not writing

’ perts. Every single person ei

member this sinister associa
subdivisions.

In any case it is clear that no!
capitalist production, othet |
manufacture of mass de).

EB ‘weapons, reveals such ni

tricate interweaving of capl¥
frontiers. It would be fair to
the main oligarchic groups of
ness today are involved 1
merchants’ international. ha
they arm the Pentagon and NA
Sponsors :

It would be a serious nisisiy
sume that the international as
arms-manufacturing mono ve
sists only of professional bu
This is not so at all.

Directly or. indirectly 4
bourgeois politicians of vai
tries, high-standing officials
known NATO generals also b&”,

The ‘“‘ring’’ needs these Pi

employs them as sponsofs; vo
ers’’ or propagandists. Some ®
the ‘‘ring’s’’ direct clients.

Of course, most of them
licize their ties with the
arms-manufacturing industt
would harm their caréers- wy
among them there are people
care a penny about this. Here *
examples.

It has been repeatedly oi
the influential Senator H. J
right-wing Democratic odet fe
reconcilable opponent of d@
close ties with the Boeing C?
is not the only one. Way ne