Kaufman, Richard F. The War Profiteers. New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1970. 282 pages.

This book was written during the Vietnam war by Richard F. Kaufman, then an assistant to Senator William Proxmire (Kaufman was last spotted at the Woodrow Wilson Center). Here he soberly analyzes the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned against, and in the end it becomes clear why Vietnam went on for as long as it did -- it was in the financial interest of powerful people to keep it going. By the last chapter one is convinced that neither Congress nor the President has the power needed to curtail military spending in a meaningful manner, even assuming that they wanted to.

The contracting and procurement system, nominally designed to protect the public interest, has been utterly corrupted. Pentagon officers cannot wait for early retirement, at which point they get hired by defense firms. In 1969, over two thousand retired officers were employed by the top 100 contractors -- triple the number when Eisenhower made his farewell speech. The laws against conflicts of interest are toothless, and there is enough money at stake to make sure they stay that way. Cost overruns, along with zero accountability for weapons that don't work, are built into the system with a wink and a nod, if not in writing. If Vietnam had not been conveniently available to prime the procurement pump, it's probable that some other war would have been invented to take its place.
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