Mother Jones 400
April 1996

7. Bernard L. Schwartz

Schwartz is now a top executive at Lockheed Martin, since that company purchased his Loral Corp. in January. A maker of satellites and military electronics, Loral boasted more than $1.6 billion in military contracts during the 1994 fiscal year. Schwartz, a huge Democratic giver, reportedly negotiated contracts for Loral with Commerce Secretary Ron Brown during a U.S.-sponsored trade visit to China in 1994. He retains control of Loral' s Globalstar, an ambitious 48-satellite project to provide wireless telephone service, which faces stiff competition from Motorola's Iridium and Bill Gates' Teledesic.

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