The Halliburton Agenda : The Politics of Oil and Money

Rating:
Summary: Well research but marketing material misleads
Review: As a whole the book is a good historical book about Brown and Root's political influence to get business from the government. As other reviewers have pointed out correctly, the Cheney chapter comes late in the book. It is discussed, but much of the book is about Brown and Root's close connection with LBJ. It's not a book primarily about Halliburton and Brown & Root's influence to get government contracts. But the historical exposition gives one perspective in how corporations are really running policy decisionmaking in the country due to their millions of dollars spent to politicians. It's frightening. How bad is it going to get before we all wise up? Is it going to take the collapse of our democracy? I hope not. This book is worth reading along with other current books out there. Ron Suskind's "The Price of Loyalty" is an excellent book whose theme is how bad or the absence of a policy making process creates bad policy. Public policy should not be a political decision, but today it has become so, and that's why it is dangerous. Also, enlightening is Molly Ivin's books "Shrub" and "Bushwhacked." Ivins gives us a history of Bush's record to explain our deranged current president -- Dubya. Additionally, Richard Clarke's book "Against All Enemies" is like Suskinds book, but shows how poor or the absence of a careful public policy process in the area of national defense creates disasterous and dangerous policy. Another good book is John Dean's "Worst Than Watergate" and Kevin Phillips' books about the Bush "dynasty" and "Wealth and Democracy." Folks we are living in dangerous times. Much of the danger has been precipitate by bad policy decisions made in secrecy and influenced by the administration's connections to the Carlyle group, millionaires, oil companies, and the House of Saud. They also convinced this former Republican that the Iraq "conflict" is an illegitimate invasion of a sovereign nation -- albeit an evil dictatorship that needed to be changed. But we are better than that. Bush-Cheney, as these books explain, is doing all of us no favors, and is turning our nation into a regime which we have fought against in the past.

Rating:
Summary: slick and superficial--a journalists tale
Review: Briody is a journalist who knows how to pack a punch--caveat emptor. But, like his book on Carlyle Group, which was more smoke than fire, some good points will be made.

Disclaimer: I have not yet read the book, but I believe this review is fair, given Briody's modus operandi.

Rating:
Summary: Thank you, Mr. Briody
Review: Dan Briody has done his research. He provides a thorough and thought-provoking account of Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root. Briody takes us from Halliburton's earliest historical context to its current influence. If you want to be educated on the influence of business on politics, this is a must read.

Rating:
Summary: Mixed Emotions: Too Short, and Surprisingly It Features LBJ
Review: Did I get the wrong book from Amazon.com? The book is advertised to be a book about Cheney and Halliburton - it is about Halliburton but not Cheney. For example, pictures of Cheney appear on both the front and back covers of the book jacket. But that is very misleading. The book is not about Cheney per se; there are in fact only a dozen or so pages dealing with Cheney near the end of the book and he plays only a minor role; he finally appears on page 191 of the 237 added seemingly as an afterthought. Surprisingly, the dominant politician in the book is the former president and Texas native Lyndon Baines Johnson or LBJ. By my estimate and it is confirmed by looking at the index, LBJ takes up three times as much space in the book as Cheney, and furthermore he plays a much more important role in setting any "agenda" at Brown & Root - a subsidiary of Halliburton. Even though the book even if falsely promoted it is still an interesting read about two old US companies and their eventual merger; but at just 237 pages long in medium font is not a 5 star effort, just 3.5 stars, maybe only 3 stars at best.

The first company described is the oil well services company Halliburton started in approximately 1920 by Erle Halliburton in Oklahoma. Erle Halliburton died in 1957 leaving a successful and financially strong and independent business enterprise as his legacy. The second company is Brown & Root (B & R) that developed from being a Texas road construction company that was started around 1917 to become a major defense contractor. The business grew through political connections and after many decades B & R had become the largest engineering and construction company in the USA, boosted by the Vietnam war effort, and fed by a series of domestic and foreign construction and defense contracts stretching around the globe.

The book tells (very briefly) how these companies developed, merged in 1962 with R & B being bought by Halliburton, and how they became a major defense contractor. It also contains many side stories such as the influence of the rising political star LBJ in Texas, dam construction, back room operators such as A.J.Wirtz, political intrigue, the milking of Roosevelt's New Deal money, navy boat building, the fall of Leland Olds who was a bureaucrat blocking their expansion, the Johnson Space Center contract, Vietnam contracts, the LOGCAP contract, the Dresser merger, Henry Waxman's congressional charges against Halliburton and the sole sourcing, etc. Cheney appears near the end of the book and I did learn that Cheney flunked out of Yale and was arrested twice for DWI in his youth. There are a number of insights and comments on the current contracts to Halliburton. But since Halliburton had the LOGCAP contract before Cheney, it seems to me that Cheney played no more a dramatic role - I suspect - than any other good CEO or "rainmaker" might have played at Halliburton to boost its revenues.

As a book I would say it rates just 3 or 4 stars since as the author acknowledges that he uses and number of existing books such as "Erle P. Halliburton: Genius with Cement" and other publications, and most of the book is about the older history - as I said Cheney does not even appear until page 191 out of 237. So even when he appears the information is scant. Having said that it is clear the author has done extensive research, he has a nice reference section for further reading, he brings the story together, but overall it seems like a short collection of historical facts and tidbits. As it stands, it is more of a "gateway" book or introduction and it would have been a 5 star book if it was about 400-500 pages long and was more complete. But some of the references and 40 pages of notes at the back are worth a follow up read.

So surprisingly just 3 to 4 stars.

Jack In Toronto

Rating:
Summary: False advertising
Review: I feel suckered by the publisher for buying this book. The title and the Dick Cheney cover suggest this is a book about Cheney and his tenure at the company. This book is told chronologically and runs 237 pages. Cheney becomes CEO on page 198 and leaves on page 215. This book should have been titled "Lyndon Johnson - The Senator from Brown & Root" as the bulk of the book is about Herman Brown bribing Texas Democrats to get New Deal era construction contracts.
The book sheds little information about Halliburton under Cheney's leadership as CEO or his relationship with the company as VP. What comments the book does provide about Cheney are mostly not researched data, but the author's rather paranoid assertions. I found the writing to lack credibility as the author seems torn between being a reporter and being a columnist. This conflict is evident in the poor job he does of distinguishing his assumptions from actual events.
Reading the WSJ coverage of the Halliburton investigation, one suspects that there is evidence somewhere that Cheney has abused his office to benefit his friends at Halliburton. There is a book there for a good journalist to write, but this not that book and the author does not appear to have hope of being that journalist.

Rating:
Summary: The Halliburton Agenda : The Politics of Oil and Money
Review: In The Halliburton Agenda, Halliburton and its subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, form the foundation of an intriguing story of cronyism and conflict of interest that has only increased in momentum over the last decade." "Author Dan Briody cuts through the veil of secrecy that cloaks this controversial company, and reveals how the confluence of business and politics has led to questionable deals as well as financial windfalls for Halliburton, its executives, and its subsidiaries." "Halliburton's inextricable links to politicians and the United States military, its dealings with countries known to sponsor terrorism, and its controversial $2 billion government contract to rebuild Iraq are only the tip of the iceberg. The Halliburton Agenda untangles a complex web of political power plays and deceptive deals - revealing how a company with the right connections can finesse its way to success

Rating:
Summary: An Unholy Trinity Revealed
Review: In The Halliburton Agenda, Halliburton and its subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, form the foundation of an intriguing story of cronyism and conflict of interest that has only increased in momentum over the last decade." "Author Dan Briody cuts through the veil of secrecy that cloaks this controversial company, and reveals how the confluence of business and politics has led to questionable deals as well as financial windfalls for Halliburton, its executives, and its subsidiaries." "Halliburton's inextricable links to politicians and the United States military, its dealings with countries known to sponsor terrorism, and its controversial $2 billion government contract to rebuild Iraq are only the tip of the iceberg. The Halliburton Agenda untangles a complex web of political power plays and deceptive deals - revealing how a company with the right connections can finesse its way to success

Rating:
Summary: It's who you know?
Review: Regardless of your political persuasion, I recommend The Halliburton Agenda. Author Dan Briody follows Erle Halliburton's career from the oil fields as a driver in the early 1900's to the boardrooms where in the 1920's Halliburton was already a millionaire. During the same era brothers, Herman and George, founders of Brown & Root, the predecessor of the modern day Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) that is now a subsidiary of Halliburton, began as road builders and garbage haulers in Texas and graduated to dam builders and became a major government contractor as they learned to work the political system.

The ties between the Brown brothers and politicians, most notably Lyndon Johnson, are revealed in some detail. It is a fascinating view. The ups and downs of KBR are followed through the decades as the construction firm lands contract after contract.

Early on, author Briody makes a strong effort to keep his opinions - if not his perspective - off the pages. Unfortunately later in the book, he does not stick to the facts, but occasionally opines. An example of this editorializing is found on page 211 when discussing Dick Cheney Briody states "Either way, he's not the man I want bending the president's ear on a daily basis." I would have preferred coming to that conclusion on my own.

Overall, the book has a good deal of balance with Briody giving space to others praising Halliburton's while raising questions about the LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) design and bidding process.

I like timelines, charts and pictures. Unfortunately, this book has none. A timeline of the successes and failures with a listing of the contracts would be a nice addition to the book. Also, photographs of the major players and construction projects would add flavor.

Rating:
Summary: False advertising
Review: This is an interesting book and mostly correct. Near the end is a comment by the author that Dick Cheney is greatly admired almost as a father figure by today's Halliburton leaders. In fact, most thought his personnel management and business decisions were flawed and that he was just keeping a chair warm while getting rich and waiting for the opportunity to return to Washington, D.C.

Rating:
Summary: Mostly very good
Review: This is an interesting book and mostly correct. Near the end is a comment by the author that Dick Cheney is greatly admired almost as a father figure by today's Halliburton leaders. In fact, most thought his personnel management and business decisions were flawed and that he was just keeping a chair warm while getting rich and waiting for the opportunity to return to Washington, D.C.