When the Lockheed scandal broke, with a Congressional investigation in Washing- ton, the stories that emerged were frag- mented and often speculative. Only the big names, like Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, hit the headlines. But scores of top politicians and senior government officials were involved. And behind them were a host of bizarre subordinates - the octogenarian down-and-outs whom Lock- heed recruited to launder bribes in Italy, the unfrocked priest who carted millions of Japanese yen from Hong Kong to Tokyo in cardboard orange boxes, the porno film actor turned kamikaze pilot - shadowy figures in a cast of characters out of a novel ofinternational intriguc', as Senator Frank Church called them.
To unravel the Lockhced story, David Boulton draws on Lockheed's own pub- lished papers (plus those of its rival North- rop), the records of two Congressional investigations, the reports of official en- quiries in Holland, Spain and Turkey, the transcripts of criminal trials in Japan and Italy and interviews with primary witnesses. He tells who bribed whom, and why, ex- plaining the immense pressures, economic and political, which made overseas sales so vital a part of Lockheed's business. Isolated incidents which have found their way to the public record are here set in their proper context as part of Lockheed's overall strategy. Other incidents till now shrouded in obscurity are unravelled in full for the first time.
Formerly the Editor of ITV's award- winning series World in Action, David Boulton is now Editor of Granada's drama documentary unit. His first major book, Objection Overruled, on the treatment of conscientious objectors in the First World War, was the basis of the controversial BBC drama series Day of Hope. He is also the author of The UVF, a history of Protestant secret armies in Ireland and The Making of Hearst, described in America as 'much the most intelligent study of the Patty Hearst case although written by an Englishman'