cryptogon.com news – analysis – conspiracies

March 30th, 2009

Most people would probably read over the AP piece below without thinking twice about the mention of GM’s new Chairman of the Board:

Board member Kent Kresa, the former chairman and CEO of defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp., was named interim chairman of the GM board.

Woh. Hold on there. Who is Kent Kresa?

In addition to his work as a member of the board of GM, he’s also a Senior Advisor at the Carlyle Group. Since his bio on the Carlyle Group’s website is the most complete one that I came across, I’ll quote from it. Everything in bold references links to the black world of special access programs:

Global private equity firm The Carlyle Group today announced that Kent Kresa, the former Chairman and CEO of Northrop Grumman Corporation, has joined Carlyle as a Senior Advisor to its aerospace and defense group. … Mr. Kresa was Chairman of the Board of Directors of Northrop Grumman Corporation from September 1990 until October 2003. He served as Chief Executive Officer from January 1990 until March 2003, and President from 1987 until September 2001. In 1982 he was appointed Group Vice President of the company’s Aircraft Group and in 1986 was named Senior Vice President-Technology Development and Planning. Mr. Kresa joined Northrop Grumman in 1975 as Vice President and Manager of the company’s Research and Technology Center, developing new proprietary processes and products for the company. From 1976-82 he served as Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Ventura Division, a leader in the production of unmanned aeronautical vehicles. Before joining Northrop Grumman, Mr. Kresa served with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, where he was responsible for broad, applied research and development programs in the tactical and strategic defense arena. From 1961-68 he was associated with the Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), where he worked on ballistic missile defense research and reentry technology. … Mr. Kresa serves on the boards of directors of the Avery Dennison Corporation, Fluor Corporation, General Motors Corporation, Eclipse Aviation Corporation, Trust Company of the West, and Advanced Bionics Corporation. He is the Board Vice Chair of the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County and serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations and universities. Mr. Kresa is a Member of the M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory Advisory Board and a Member of the UCLA Anderson School of Business Board of Visitors.

Kresa presided over Northrop Grumman’s acquisition of TRW, another firm heavily linked to black projects. Just how connected is this guy to the secret world? This is from World Policy – Arms Trade Resource Center:

This string of mergers and acquisitions created a company that is uniquely strong in both the metal bending work of building ships and planes and the cutting edge work in electronics and intelligence gathering. It also created a company uniquely well suited to meet the defense needs of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism. This is neither an accident nor a lucky stroke. This is the result of careful planning and unprecedented political influence. Northrop Grumman CEO Kent Kresa and other executives are part of “St. Andrew’s Prep,” an informal network of Andrew Marshall protégés. Marshall directs the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment and is an iconoclastic military strategist who was given wide power to define future defense priorities by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The strong imperative to build and deploy missile defense and the need to develop a more flexible and high tech military are just a few of Andrew Marshall’s ideas and areas where Northrop Grumman is strong and growing stronger. Additionally, former Northrop Grumman executives are now in influential posts in the Bush Pentagon. Secretary of the Air Force James Roche previously served as the head of Northrop Grumman’s Electronic Sensors and Systems Sector in Maryland. Barry Watts, who once ran Northrop Grumman’s influential in-house think tank, now directs the Pentagon’s Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation. These relationships have been extraordinarily important. As defense analyst Byron Callan notes, the relationship with Marshall “probably helped the Northrop Grumman guys establish a vision of where the company ought to be headed now, and in turn that vision should play to the strengths that Northrop Grumman has as a result of the role they’ve [Northrop Grumman executives] played in sort of reshaping strategy.”

What does all of this mean for GM?

I have no idea. But if something really, really strange happens, it might make much more sense in hindsight.

I’m going to quote from Blank Spots on the Map again:

The Manhattan Project, a project lasting roughly five years from start to finish, had cost $2.3 billion in 1945 dollars. A contemporary sum of about $26.8 billion: a tremendous amount. But here, a startling fact: The budget for the entire Manhattan Project was still billions of dollars less than the present day’s annual black budget. Every year, the United States spends more black dollars than it took to build the bomb. In the few short years it took to build the bomb, and with the ensuing Cold War, the notion of having classified industries, multibillion-dollar secret budgets, legions of security-cleared personnel, and entire branches of science devoted to secret science went from being unthinkable to being so natural that few people even bothered questioning it.

What technologies might someone like Kent Kresa be tasked with providing to GM?

Via: AP:

Neither General Motors nor Chrysler submitted acceptable plans to receive more federal bailout money, the Obama administration said as it set the stage for a crisis in Detroit that would dramatically reshape the nation’s auto industry.

The White House pushed out GM’s chairman and directed Chrysler to move quickly to forge a partnership with Fiat if it expects to receive additional government assistance. GM and Chrysler employ thousands in Ohio, the No. 2 state for vehicle production.

President Barack Obama and his top advisers have determined that neither company is viable and that taxpayers will not spend untold billions more to keep the pair of automakers open forever.

In a last-ditch effort, the administration gave each company a brief deadline to try one last time to convince Washington it is worth saving, said senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to more bluntly discuss the decision.

Obama was set to make the announcement at 11 a.m. Monday in the White House’s foyer.

In an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” broadcast Sunday, Obama said the companies must do more to receive additional financial aid from the government.

“We think we can have a successful U.S. auto industry. But it’s got to be one that’s realistically designed to weather this storm and to emerge — at the other end — much more lean, mean and competitive than it currently is,” Obama said.

Frustrated administration officials said Chrysler cannot function as an independent company under its current plan. They have given Chrysler a 30-day window to complete a proposed partnership with Italian automaker Fiat SpA, and will offer up to $6 billion to the companies if they can negotiate a deal before time runs out.

If a Chrysler-Fiat union cannot be completed, Washington plans to walk away, leaving Chrysler destined for a complete sell-off. No other money is available.

Shawn Morgan, a Chrysler spokeswoman, said the company wants to work with the Treasury Department and Obama’s auto task force but declined to comment on the White House’s plans.

“With the administration’s announcement on the restructuring of the automotive industry imminent, it would be inappropriate to comment on speculation,” Morgan said in a statement early Monday.

For GM, the administration offered 60 days of operating money to restructure. A frantic top-to-bottom effort began Sunday after chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner stepped aside under pressure from the White House.

Fritz Henderson, GM’s president and chief operating officer, became the new CEO, the company said in a statement Monday. Board member Kent Kresa, the former chairman and CEO of defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp., was named interim chairman of the GM board.