You appear practiced and seasoned at defending the indefensible policies of Loral. My comments were specifically targetted at you and your colleagues who CHOSE to work at Loral. It is the workers at a company who CHOOSE to engage in work at a company. The defense that "I was just following orders" does not compute. The fact is that engineers at Loral were actively paid by their company to transfer technology to the PRC. When I hear people attempting to defend the ABUSIVE antics of a ridiculously hypocritical management, it is a lark. Wake up!
Since you request quotes and facts (something that is sometimes lacking in the trenches of engineering firms), let me quote the Cox Report on this matter.
By agreeing to procure numerous satellites from Hughes Electronics Co. (Hughes) and Space Systems/Loral (Loral) in the early 1990s, the PRC created a mutuality of interest with two companies well-positioned to advocate the liberalization of export controls on these platforms.
For example, Bernard L. Schwartz, Chairman and CEO of Loral Space & Communications, Ltd., the parent company of Loral, met directly on at least four occasions with Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown after 1993, and accompanied him on a 1994 trade mission to the PRC.113
C. Michael Armstrong, the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of GM Hughes Electronics, the parent company of Hughes, has served as Chairman of President Clinton’s Export Council since 1993, working with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Commerce, and others to "provide insight and counsel" to the President on a variety of trade matters.114 Armstrong also serves or has served as a member of the Defense Preparedness Advisory Council, the Telecommunications Advisory Council, and the Secretary of State’s Advisory Council.115
Both Armstrong and Schwartz, as well as other executives from high-technology firms, advocated the transfer of export licensing authority from the "more stringent control" of the State Department to the Commerce Department. Armstrong met with the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor, and the Secretary of State on the matter, and both Schwartz and Armstrong co-signed a letter with Daniel Tellep of Lockheed Martin Corporation to the President urging this change.116 The changes they advocated were ultimately adopted.
Between 1993 and January 3, 1999, Loral and Hughes succeeded in obtaining waivers or export licenses for an aggregate of five satellite projects.117
Regarding the awards and merits involved with satellite deals (which you appear to deny), there is CLEARLY a political process at play. My conclusion is that you are either attempting to deceive us or you are attempting to deceive yourself. If you are an engineer, you are in denial. If you are in executive management, you're a liar. Anyone with any managerial experience in aerospace or engineering KNOWS that politics played a role in the prosperity of Loral and the demise of virtually every other company around it.
Regarding Hughes, their company has benefitted from sales to Boeing. Prior to having Boeing's leadership, it was obvious that the Hughes leadership was selling technology to the very regimes that are now pointing their missiles at us.
Regarding your denial of technology transfer regarding third-stage orbital insertion techniques (which are the technologies required to MIRV tip a nuclear missile), you are also incorrect. The fact is that the Long March failures were investigated by Loral and Hughes teams. The fact is that Loral and Hughes gave high-level support for those initiatives. This was not a simple case of "one engineer" having excessive verbosity. This was a case of several corporations specifically aiding and abetting a regime with obvious antagonistic attitudes towards our nation.
Quoting the Cox Report from http://www.house.gov/hunter/CoxReport-sat-loral.htm.
The Defense Department assessment concluded that "Loral and Hughes committed a serious export control violation by virtue of having performed a defense service without a license . . . "
The State Department referred the matter to the Department of Justice for possible criminal prosecution.
The answer is clear. YOU CHOOSE TO WORK WHERE YOU ARE. Don't go complaining about management. If you really are that conservative and that patriotic, don't work for a company that exports our technology to the PRC!
With respect to hospital shut downs, look around Los Angeles and look what the Clinton-Gore-Davis people have done to healthcare in your area. Your health care system IS being shut down by the EXACT same people who sucked millions from Loral.
Happy July 4th... I hope you can become more independent from the people at Loral. There will be plenty of job opportunities created by the Bush/Cheney BMDO projects....that is ... if you have correct security clearances.... but then again... you CHOOSE to work at Loral...
By the way, how's those Oracle DB's and Sun Sparc Stations over there?
I will clarify, hopefully for the final, time my position. But even before that I wish to clear up a few of your misconceptions about me. You assume that I now work for Loral. I never said I did or did not. I have worked for or with three commercial companies and three government offices (NASA, SPAWAR, and NRO) in the last 11 years, both as a government technical rep (while on active duty) and as an engineer (post military career.) I am not management. I am a senior engineer and have led technical teams and major programs. I have worked both in and out of the 'black' world, so you needn't concern yourself about my clearance. I help develop and implement the technologies that keep our nation leading in aerospace. I do not give those technologies to anybody. Now to your response...
First, I neither defend illegal practices nor those that perpetrate them. When greedy wallstreeters can 'purchase' favor from corrupt politicians, both should be called to the carpet. In this case, a senior manager (who fyi was of asian decent) with or without consent of corporate (I don't know) picked up a failure report, part of a normal insurance investigation after the long march failure, walked across his office and faxed it to an office in the PRC without consulting with the defense dept tech tranfer office. For that, besides the subsequent removal of this person, the company was fined roughly $10 million by the very govt that as you point out was complicite in helping them create the chinese relationship that was being formed between Clinton and Bejing. Everything that occured up to the unforeseen faxing by said individual was legal. No one below said individual knew or could have known the actions he would take without authority.
With regards to political processes in satellite awards, you are correct that govt approval is required for export liscense. However the contract must be won by the company like any other business activity and the govt does not match up customer with preffered contractor. My comment was that Loral competes fairly to win those awards.
You have properly identified the true perpetraitors via the Cox report, Schwart, Armstrong, and Tellep in collusion with Ron Brown and Clinton managed to swindle the entire country into thinking that relaxing export controls (and allowing such security gaps that occured in both this industry and others such as computer inustry and the national labs) was good policy. Again, they should be hung for this. But I continue to disagree with you that good employees with niether knowledge of the illegal acts or the ability to influence national policy of the time should be scorned by fellow Americans.
Hughes' aquisition by Boeing has less to do with its misdemeaners in the Chinese affair than industry consolidation and Boeings desire to enter the satellite market. For what its worth, it is not unlikely that Loral will be aquired Lockheed in the near future. Would that aquisition suddenly release the employees from the focus of your anger?
I personally think the military activities in Bosnia by the US under Clinton were illegal, yet I can not fault the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who carried out what they believed to be orders in the interest of national security as the then administration would claim. What happened at Loral was far less obvious to all but a very few, but I hope you see the parallel.
As to the hospital shutdowns, I wish only the best for those decent hardworking med professionals displaced by the greed and illegal activity of superiors.