Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

By John Perkins

Preface

Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries
around the globe out of trillions of dollars. The funnel money from the
World Bank, U.S. Agency for International

Development, and other foreign "aid" organizations into the coffers of huge
corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the
planet's natural resources. Their tools include

fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and
murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and
terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.

I should know; I was an EHM.

I wrote that in 1982, as the beginning of a book with the working title
Conscience of an Economic Hit Man. The book was dedicated to the presidents
of two countries, men who had been my clients, whom I respected and thought
of as kindred spiritsJaime Rold�s, president

of Ecuador, and Omar Torrijos, president of Panama. Both had just died in
fiery crashes. Their deaths were not accidental. They were assassinated
because they opposed that fraternity of corporate, government, and banking
heads whose goal is global empire. We EHMs failed to bring Rold�s and
Torrijos around, and the other type of hit men, the CIA-sanctioned jackals
who were always right behind us, stepped in.

I was persuaded to stop writing that book. I started it four more times
during the next twenty years. On each occasion, my decision to begin again
was influenced by current world events: the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1980,
the first Gulf War, Somalia, and the rise of Osama bin Laden. However,
threats or bribes always convinced me to stop.

In 2003, the president of a major publishing house that is owned by a
powerful international corporation read a  draft of what had now become
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. He described it as "a riveting story
that needs to be told." Then he smiled sadly, shook his head, and told me
that since the executives at world headquarters might object, he could not
afford to risk publishing it. He advised me to fictionalize it. "We could
market you in the mold of a novelist like John Le Carre or Graham Greene."

But this is not fiction. It is the true story of my life. Amore courageous
publisher, one not owned by an international corporation, has agreed to help
me tell it.

This story must be told. We live in a time of terrible crisisand tremendous
opportunity. The story of this particular economic hit man is the story of
how we got to where we are and why we currently face crises that see
insurmountable. This story must be told because only through understanding
our past mistakes will we be able to take advantage of future opportunities,
because 9/11 happened and so did the second war in Iraq, because in addition
to the three thousand people who died on September 11 at the hands of
terrorists, another twenty-four thousand died from hunger and hunger-related
causes. In fact, twenty-four thousand people die every single day because
they are unable to obtain life-sustaining food. Most importantly, this

story must be told because today, for the first time in history, one nation
has the ability, the money, and the power to change all this.

It is the nation where I was born and the one I served as an EHM: the United
States of America.

What finally convinced me to ignore the threats and bribes?

The short answer is that my only child, Jessica, graduated from college and
went out into the world on her own. When I recently told her that I was
considering publishing this book and shared my fears with her, she said,
"Don't worry, dad. If they get you, I'll take over where you left off. We
need to do this for the grandchildren I hope to give you someday!"

The longer version relates to my dedication to the country where I was
raised, my love for the ideals expressed by our founding fathers, my deep
commitment to the American republic that

today promises "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for all people,
everywhere, and to my determination after 9/11 not to sit idly by any longer
while EHMs turn that republic into a global

empire. That is the skeleton version of the long answer; the flesh and blood
are added during the chapters that follow.

This is a true story. I lived every minute of it. The sights, the people,
the conversations, and the feelings I describe were all a part of my life.
It is my personal story and yet it happened within

the larger context of world events that have shaped our history, brought us
to where we are today, and form the foundation for our children's futures. I
have made every effort to present these experiences, people, and
conversations accurately. Whenever I discuss historical events or re-create
conversations with other people, I do so with the help of several tools,
including published documents; personal records and notes; recollectionsmy
own and those of others who participated; the five manuscripts I began
previously; and historical accounts by other authors, most notably recently
published ones that disclose information that formerly was

classified or otherwise unavailable. Footnotes and references are provided
to allow interested readers to pursue these subjects in more depth.

My publisher asked whether we actually referred to ourselves as economic hit
men. I assured him that we did, although usually only by the initials. In
fact, on the day in 1971 when I began working with my teacher Claudine, she
informed me, "My assignment is to mold you into an economic hit man. No one
can know about your involvement not even your wife." Then she turned
serious. "Once you're in, you're in for life." After that she seldom used
the full name, we

were simply EHMs.

Claudine's role is a fascinating example of the manipulation that underlies
the business I had entered. Beautiful and intelligent, she was highly
effective; she understood my weaknesses and used them to her greatest
advantage. Her job was typical of the cogs that keep the system on track.
Claudine pulled no punches when describing what I would be called upon to
do. My job, she said, was "to encourage world leaders to become part of a
vast network that promotes U.S.

commercial interests. In the end, those leaders become ensnared in a web of
debt that ensures their loyalty. We can draw on them whenever we desireto
satisfy our political, economic, or military needs. In turn, they bolster
their political positions by bringing industrial parks, power plants, and
airports to their people. The owners of U.S. engineering and construction
companies become fabulously wealthy."

Today we see the results of this system run amok. Executives at our most
respected companies hire people at near-slave wages to toil under inhuman
conditions in Asian sweatshops. Oil companies wantonly pump toxins down rain
forest rivers, consciously killing people,

animals, and plants and committing genocide among ancient cultures.

The pharmaceutical industry denies life-saving medicines to millions of
HIV-infected Africans. Twelve million families in our own United States
worry about their next meal. The energy industry creates an Enron. The
accounting industry creates an Andersen. The income ratio

of the one-fifth of the world's population in the wealthiest countries to
the one-fifth in the poorest went from 30:1 in 1960 to 74:1 in 1995. The
United States spends over $87 billion conducting a

war in Iraq while the United Nations estimates that for less than half that
amount we could provide clean water, adequate diets, sanitation services,
and basic education to every person on the planet.

And we wonder why terrorists attack us?

Some would blame our current problems on an organized conspiracy. I wish it
were so simple. Members of a conspiracy can be rooted out and brought to
justice. This system, however, is fueled by something far more dangerous
than conspiracy. It is driven not by a small band

of men but by a concept that has become accepted as gospel: the idea that
all economic growth benefits humankind and that the greater the growth, the
more widespread the benefits. This belief also has a corollary: that those
people who excel at stoking the fires of economic growth should be exalted
and rewarded, while those born at the fringes are available for
exploitation.

The concept is, of course, erroneous. We know that in many countries
economic growth benefits only a small portion of the population and may in
fact result in increasingly desperate circumstances for the majority. This
effect is reinforced by the corollary belief that the captains of industry
who drive this system should enjoy a special status, a belief that is the
root of many of our current problems and perhaps is also the reason that
conspiracy theories abound. When

men and woman are rewarded for greed, greed becomes a corrupting motivator.
When we equate the gluttonous consumption of the earth's resources with a
status approaching sainthood, when we teach our children to emulate people
who live unbalanced lives, and when we define huge sections of the
population as subservient to an elite minority, we ask for trouble. And we
get it.

In their drive to advance the global empire, corporations, banks, and
governments (collectively the corporatocracy) use their financial and
political muscle to ensure that our schools, businesses, and the media
support both the fallacious concept and its corollary. They have brought us
to a point where our global culture is a monstrous machine that requires
exponentially increasing amounts of fuel and maintenance, so much so that in
the end it will have consumed everything in sight and will be left with no
choice but to devour itself.

The corporatocracy is not a conspiracy, but its members do endorse common
values and goals. One of corporatocracy's most important functions is to
perpetuate and continually expand and strengthen the system. The lives of
those who "make it," and their accouterments their ansions, yachts, and
private jetsare presented as models to inspire us all to consume, consume,
consume. Every opportunity is taken to convince us that purchasing things is
our civic duty, that

pillaging the earth is good for the economy and therefore serves our higher
interests. People like me are paid outrageously high salaries to do the
system's bidding. If we falter, a more malicious form of hit man, the
jackal, steps to the plate. And if the jackal fails, then the job falls to
the military.

This book is the confession of a man who, back when he was an EHM, was part
of a relatively small group. People who play similar roles are more abundant
now. They have more euphemistic titles, and they walk the corridors of
Monsanto, General Electric, Nike, General

Motors, Wal-Mart, and nearly every other major corporation in the world. In
a very real sense, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is their story, as
well as mine.

It is your story too, the story of your world and mine, of the first truly
global empire. History tells us that unless we modify this story, it is
guaranteed to end tragically. Empires never last. Every

one of them has failed terribly. They destroy many cultures as they race
toward greater domination, and then they themselves fall. No country or
combination of them can thrive in the long term by exploiting others.

This book was written so that we may take heed and remold our story.

I am certain that when enough of us become aware of how we are being
exploited by the economic engine that creates an insatiable appetite for the
world's resources and that results in systems that foster slavery, we will
no longer tolerate it. We will reassess our role in a world where a few swim
in riches and the majority drown in poverty, pollution, and violence. We
will commit ourselves to navigating a course toward compassion, democracy,
and social justice

for all.

Admitting to a problem is the first step toward finding a solution.

Confessing a sin is the beginning of redemption. Let this book, then, be the
start of our salvation. Let it inspire us to new levels of dedication, and
drive us to realize our dream for balanced and honorable societies.

A Message from John Perkins

Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004

Dear Friends who want to create a more conscious world,

My new book is finished. Bookstores are ordering it today for mid October
delivery. To write this story about the "shadow" side of my life and of
foreign policy, I had to break through my barriers of

fear. In doing so, I found that I created a book about hope. It offers a way
for us to become a world united to promote peace, equality, and compassion.

Perhaps the most pressing reason for writing Confessions of an Economic Hit
Man were the events of and after 9/11. They taught us that we must rise to
new levels of consciousness about who we are

and how we relate to the rest of the world. This is essential for future
generations and for ourselves, so that 9/11 or anything like it will never
happen again, anywhere. This book offers us ways to create a more
compassionate and secure world.(You may learn more about the book at
www.johnperkins.org/).

Now I ask a favor. Please call your favorite bookstore today and order at
least one copy of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. For the purposes of
making the "Best Seller" lists (which trigger lots of publicity), I
understand that it is best to order in advance through a bookstore. If you
agree that it is a vehicle for positive change, please buy more copies and
donate them to your library, high school, college, local newspaper, radio,
and TV stations.

I urge you to order Confessions of an Economic Hit Man today because I feel
so very strongly that this message must get out -- now. I've never requested
this for any of my 5 previously published books.

This book is more than my story; it is our story, yours and mine, the story
of our world, one our children will inherit. It is a story that offers great
hope for the future. It is a story with an ending that envisions a world
that will make our children proud of us.

[ED: You may order directly from John's page. The link takes you right to
his book, Thank you]

Together we will change the world. We will realize the truth of the
prophecies. We are indeed entering a new era.

Thank you in advance for your support.

John Perkins

P.S. I'm currently planning a multi-city speaking tour for most of November
and also early 2005. I plan on holding local discussion groups and will
provide you with further updates and invitations to them.

Back to John's page http://www.beyondtheordinary.net/john-letter.shtml

Also see: http://www.beyondtheordinary.net/johnperkins.shtml