George Brown (B&R, then KBR) had close ties with LBJ...

[KansDem]

An eerie parallel to what's happening today...

All Things Considered, December 24, 2003 · Current criticism over Halliburton's lucrative Iraq contracts has some historians drawing parallels to a similar controversy involving the company during Lyndon B. Johnson's administration.

Nearly 40 years ago, Halliburton faced almost identical charges over its work for the U.S. government in Vietnam -- allegations of overcharging, sweetheart contracts from the White House and war profiteering. Back then, the company's close ties to President Johnson became a liability. Today -- as NPR's John Burnett reports in the last of a three-part series -- Halliburton seems to be distancing itself from its former chief executive officer, Vice President Dick Cheney.

The story of Halliburton's ties to the White House dates back to the 1940s, when a Texas firm called Brown & Root constructed a massive dam project near Austin. The company's founders, Herman and George Brown, won the contract to build Mansfield Dam thanks to the efforts of Johnson, who was then a Texas congressman.

After Johnson took over the Oval Office, Brown & Root won contracts for huge construction projects for the federal government. By the mid-1960s, newspaper columnists and the Republican minority in Congress began to suggest that the company's good luck was tied to its sizable contributions to Johnson's political campaign.

NPR

I have read that JFK was assassinated by the Military-Industrial Complex because he was intending to withdraw from Vietnam, but I never knew about the close relationship of LBJ with the MIC. Very similar to the relationship of Dick Cheney to Halliburton...

[MADem]

1. Nowadays, the influence is beyond the pale

Back then, most military labor was actually IN UNIFORM--the guys who stocked the shelves in the commissaries, to the kid mowing the grass in front of the General's quarters, to the ones who handed you buckets of golf balls at the driving range--they all were IN THE SERVICE. Now, most of the "tail" (as in "tooth to tail ratio") is civilian. Sure, there are similarities in the fact that influence exists today and existed back then, but the order of magnitude today makes the old days look inconsequential in contrast.

The construction contracts which have a start date and an end date are just one chunk of the pie--the ongoing SERVICES contracts, the "mercenaries for hire" deals for security support, the cooks, cleaners, shit-shovellers that are trucked in from third world nations to do the daily grind work, the oil workers, and so forth, are part of the equation as well--and these are part of the modern DOD, and were not a big chunk of the total back in the LBJ days.