John Perkins: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

These are the essential questions of our time. Each of us needs to answer them in our own way and to express our answers clearly, unequivocally. Paine and Jefferson and all the other patriots are watching over our shoulders. Their words continue to inspire us today. The spirits of those men and women who left their farms and fishing boats and headed out to confront the mighty British Empire, and of those who fought to emancipate the slaves during the Civil War, and of those who sacrificed their lives to protect the world from fascism, speak to us. As do the spirits of the ones who stayed at home and produced the food and clothes and gave their moral support, and of all the men and women who have defended what was won on those battlefields: the teachers, poets, artists, entrepreneurs, health workers, the manual laborers… you and me.

The hour is ours. It is now time for each and every one of us to step up to the battle line, to ask the important questions, to search our souls for our own answers, and to take action.

The coincidences of your life, and the choices you have made in response to them, have brought you to this point…

1963Graduates prep school, enters Middlebury College.

1964Befriends Farhad, son of an Iranian general. Drops out of Middlebury.

1965Works for Hearst newspapers in Boston.

1966Enters Boston University College of Business Administration.

1967Marries former Middlebury classmate, whose “Uncle Frank” is a top-echelon executive at the National Security Agency (NSA).

1968Profiled by the NSA as an ideal economic hit man. With Uncle Frank’s blessing, joins the Peace Corps and is assigned to the Ecuadorian Amazon, where ancient indigenous tribes battle U.S. oil companies.

1969Lives in the rain forest and the Andes. Experiences firsthand the deceitful and destructive practices employed by oil companies and government agencies, and their negative impacts on local cultures and environments.

1970In Ecuador, meets vice president of international consulting firm MAIN, who is also an NSA liaison officer.

1971Joins MAIN, undergoes clandestine training in Boston as an economic hit man (EHM), and is sent as part of an eleven-man team to Java, Indonesia. Struggles with conscience over pressure to falsify economic studies.

1972Due to willingness to “cooperate,” is promoted to chief economist and is viewed as a “whiz kid.” Meets important leaders, including World Bank president Robert McNamara. Sent on special assignment to Panama. Befriended by Panamanian president and charismatic leader, Omar Torrijos; learns about history of U.S. imperialism and Torrijos’s determination to transfer Canal ownership from the United States to Panama.

1973Career skyrockets. Builds empire within MAIN; continues work in Panama; travels extensively and conducts studies in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

1974Instrumental in initiating a huge EHM success in Saudi Arabia. Royal family agrees to invest billions of dollars of oil income in U.S. securities and to allow the U.S. Department of the Treasury to use the interest from those investments to hire U.S. firms to build power and water systems, highways, ports, and cities in the kingdom. In exchange, the United States guarantees that the royal family will continue to rule. This will serve as a model for future EHM deals, including one that ultimately fails in Iraq.

1975Promoted again — to youngest partner in MAIN’s one hundred — year history — and named manager of Economics and Regional Planning. Publishes series of influential papers; lectures at Harvard and other institutions.

1976Heads major projects around the world, in Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America, and the Middle East. Learns from the shah of Iran a revolutionary approach to EHM empire building.

1977Due to personal relationships in Colombia, becomes exposed to the plight of farmers who are branded as communist terrorists and drug traffickers, but are in fact peasants trying to protect their families and homes.

1978Rushed out of Iran by Farhad. Together, they fly to the Rome home of Farhad’s father, an Iranian general, who predicts the shah’s imminent ouster and blames U.S. policy, corrupt leaders, and despotic governments for the hatred sweeping the Middle East. He warns that if the United States does not become more compassionate, the situation will deteriorate.

1979Struggles with conscience as the shah flees his country and Iranians storm the U.S. Embassy, taking fifty-two hostages. Realizes that the United States is a nation laboring to deny the truth about its imperialist role in the world. After years of tension and frequent separations, divorces first wife.

1980Suffers from deep depression, guilt, and the realization that money and power have trapped him at MAIN. Quits.

1981Is deeply disturbed when Ecuador’s president Jaime Roldós (who has campaigned on an anti-oil platform) and Panama’s Omar Torrijos (who has incurred the wrath of powerful Washington interests, due to his positions on the Panama Canal and U.S. military bases) die in fiery airplane crashes that have all the markings of CIA assassinations. Marries for the second time, to a woman whose father is chief architect at Bechtel Corporation and is in charge of designing and building cities in Saudi Arabia — work financed through the 1974 EHM deal.

1982Creates Independent Power Systems Inc. (IPS), a company committed to producing environmentally friendly electricity. Fathers Jessica.

1983–1989Succeeds spectacularly as IPS CEO, with much help from “coincidences”—people in high places, tax breaks, etc. As a father, frets over world crises and former EHM role. Begins writing a tell-all book, but is offered a lucrative consultants’ retainer on the condition that he not write the book.

1990–1991Following the U.S. invasion of Panama and imprisonment of Noriega, sells IPS and retires at forty-five. Contemplates book about life as an EHM, but instead is persuaded to direct energies toward creating a nonprofit organization, an effort which, he is told, would be negatively impacted by such a book.

1992–2000Watches the EHM failures in Iraq that result in the first Gulf War. Three times starts to write the EHM book, but instead gives in to threats and bribes. Tries to assuage conscience by writing books about indigenous peoples, supporting nonprofit organizations, teaching at New Age forums, traveling to the Amazon and the Himalayas, meeting with the Dalai Lama, etc.

2001–2002Leads a group of North Americans deep into the Amazon, and is there with an indigenous tribe on September 11, 2001. Spends a day at Ground Zero and commits to writing the book that can heal his pain and expose the truth behind EHMs.

2003–2004Returns to the Ecuadorian Amazon to meet with the indigenous tribes who have threatened war against the oil companies; writes Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

Preface

1. The United Nations World Food Programme, http://www.wfp.org/index.asp?section=1 (accessed December 27, 2003). In addition, the National Association for the Prevention of Starvation estimates that “Every day 34,000 children under five die of hunger or preventable diseases resulting from hunger” (http://www.napsoc.org, accessed December 27, 2003). Starvation.net estimates that “if we were to add the next two leading ways (after starvation) the poorest of the poor die, waterborne diseases and AIDS, we would be approaching a daily body count of 50,000 deaths” (http://www.starvation.net, accessed December 27, 2003).