The Halliburton Agenda

Dan Briody, the author of The Halliburton Agenda, The Politics of Oil and Money chronicles the company we know today as Halliburton; a company built by a man who took pride in the fact that his company was built from the ground up by men much like himself; principled and hardworking. In this paper I will attempt to recount/highlight the story told by Mr. Briody, provide my personal reaction and relate to the DIME.

Erle Palmer Halliburton was born September 12, 1892 in Memphis Tennessee. He left home at the age of fourteen carrying the hopes and dreams of his family on his back. By the age of eighteen, Erle joined the United States Navy and received the first formal training of his young life. Erle left the service in 1915 and settled in Los Angeles, California where he met and married Vida Taber. Four years later in 1919 in Wilson, Oklahoma with Vida acting as his bookkeeper and secretary Erle founded Halliburton.

Erle had a serious disdain for politics/politicians. It is speculated that if he were alive today, he would have never allowed his company and his name to be associated in the mind of the public with war profiteering and political influence. Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton cultivated Halliburton’s image of war profiteering in the publics mind. However, before I discuss how this image came about, a brief introduction into the history of Kellogg, Brown, & Root (KBR) is provided.

Hermann Brown’s foray into entrepreneurship began when his employer at that time, Carl Swinford offered Hermann the company’s mules and other equipment in exchange for Hermann’s back pay. Hermann accepted the exchange, and the rest, as they say is history. Hermann struggled to pay off his former employer’s debt and managed to buy additional teams of mules on credit. Hermann’s brother George, six years his junior joined him in business at a time when Hermann had built a decent road building business in Texas. Like many...