Dead prince admits Dutch bribery scandal

[emad]

By Times Online
http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,164375,00.jpg
Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands

Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, one of the country's leading royals and father of Queen Beatrix, has admitted from beyond the grave that he took a million-dollar bribe from a US aerospace company in the 1970s.

His admission, given several years ago in an interview, was made on the understanding it would be publicised only after his death. He died on Wednesday, aged 93.

The Prince owned up to taking $1million from the aerospace giant Lockheed in exchange for providing contacts and helping the firm win a government order for Starfighter 104 planes.

Prince Bernhard had always denied any role in the scandal, which dominated the Dutch media in 1976, and although his direct involvement was never proved, the fall-out overshadowed his proud reputation as a wartime resistance leader, a founder of the World Wildlife Fund and a champion of Dutch industry.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1386393,00.html

NOW maybe Beatrix will admit how much she got from Ken Lay for keeping quiet about insider trading in the Royal Duch Shell oil co.....

[aquart]

1. Dutch TV should be fun tonight.

[Blue_Tires]

2. defense contractors dealing below the table??

why i'm shocked, SHOCKED!

[emad]

3. Obituary from The Telegraph:

HRH Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands
(Filed: 04/12/2004)

Snip

The Prince's involvement in this came to light in December 1975, when a former executive of the Lockheed aircraft company, Ernest Hauser, made available to the Wall Street Journal a diary he had kept from 1961 to 1964. Hauser was then customer relations manager at Lockheed's sales office in Western Germany. The diary was examined at a US Senate investigation into multi-national corporations, which revealed Lockheed's long-standing practice of bribing foreign politicians to clinch deals.

In the diary, Hauser recorded Prince Bernhard's demands for commission for helping to promote sales of Lockheed Starfighters to the Dutch Air Force. In an interview with the BBC in August 1976, Hauser claimed that the Prince had an insatiable appetite for money and was paid more than $1 million by Lockheed.

Moreover, he said, the Prince had sent a hand-written letter to Lockheed stating that, if he did not receive $4 million, the US aircraft company would never do business with the Netherlands again.

An official Dutch commission of inquiry into the scandal, headed by Prime Minister Joop Den Uyl, censured the Prince. Although they doubted the authenticity of Hauser's diary, and found no evidence that Bernhard had actually exerted influence on the Dutch airforce's choice of aircraft, the report said that he had "shown himself open to dishonourable favours and offers" and had "harmed the interests of the State". In fact, it was revealed yesterday that the Prince admitted, in a series of interviews given between 1996 and 2002 (on condition that they were made public only after his death), that he had received a $1 million "sweetener" from Lockheed.

More lying and cheating:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&targetRule=10&xml=/news/2004/12/04/db0401.xml

[emad]

5. From The Times

Snip:

However, he told the weekly Groene Amsterdammer magazine: “I have always earned plenty of money, so I didn’t need the million from Lockheed. How could I have been so stupid?”

He claimed that he had not seen most of the money, and had given away the funds he did finally get. “But that won’t make much difference for history. I have accepted that the word Lockheed will be carved on my tombstone.

“I don’t know what had gotten into me. I have plenty of money. My money is spread across three countries: America, the Netherlands and Switzerland. In Switzerland alone I have more than six million in the bank,” he told the magazine. .............................

Before his confession, newspapers published lengthy tributes to the man who helped to inspire Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupiers during World War II, and who helped to boost his adopted country’s economy after the war. There were only passing mentions of the 1976 Lockheed bribery scandal, with most newspapers noting that he had been finally cleared.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1387624,00.html

[rman]

4. i remember the Starfighters

it was a fiasco; they kept falling out of the sky.

i didn't know about the bribe but i can't say i'm very surprised.

[AP]

6. Another proud moment for inherited privilege and the military industrial

complex.