Raytheon Shapes Military Policy
As an engineer at a neighboring business to Raytheon, I would like to give some background on the recent “arms inspection” protest there. In January 1991 on the eve of the Gulf War, I received a call from one of our suppliers. He wanted to know whether the war would be good for our business. While waiting to think of an appropriate reply to this shocking question, he went on to tell me that our neighbors at Raytheon were saying that they really wanted the war to start because it would be good for their business. . . .

Raytheon was the only weapons contractor in Goleta that refused to participate in “economic conversion” meetings to switch from military to civilian production after the senior Bush cut back military spending. “We intend to more aggressively seek out foreign markets for their weapons instead,” they explained.

Management-level friends who have come to our business from these weapons contractors say that they were regularly required to round up contributions for political candidates who supported increased military spending. In 1994 our representative, Michael Huffington, was asked to “arrange” an illegal arms deal by Raytheon. They were used to these “arrangements” under his predecessor Robert Lagomarsino. When he refused, they funded the campaign of Dianne Feinstein, who was running against him for senator.

I felt the need to speak out after seeing letters claiming that Raytheon is simply a business fulfilling the contracts given by our democratically elected government, hence is not a proper target of protests.

In point of fact, Raytheon is a key force that shapes our nation’s military policies, spending large sums of money to lobby and otherwise influence policy. In many ways, protesting Raytheon makes far more sense than protesting against their puppets in Washington. I applaud the protesters for their creative and perceptive actions.
Robert Bernstein