The former Vietnam War flying ace is known on Capitol Hill for his interest in defence issues and his occasional temperamental outbursts. He drew little notice outside his San Diego-area district until the San Diego Union-Tribune reported last June that he’d sold his home to Mitchell Wade, who runs the defence contracting company, MZM Inc.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bb In addition to buying Mr Cunningham’s home at an inflated price, Mr Wade let him live rent-free on his yacht, the Duke Stir, at the Capital Yacht Club. His firm also donated generously to Mr Cunningham’s various charity campaigns. Around the same time as the house sale, MZM Inc was winning valuable defence contracts from the government.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bb Mr Cunningham sat on the House Appropriations sub-committee that controls defence dollars. In 2004, the little-known company, MZM, based in Washington DC, tripled its revenue and nearly quadrupled its staff, according to information on the company web site before Mr Wade stepped down as president and the company was sold. Prosecutors said Mr Cunningham had taken bribes that enabled him to buy a mansion, a suburban Washington house, a yacht and a Rolls-Royce.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tCunnigham mit donc vingt ans \u00e0 troquer un F-4 Phantom<\/em> de la Navy pour une Rolls Royce de parlementaire. En 1972, comme lieutenant de vaisseau de la Navy, il avait acquis une grande c\u00e9l\u00e9brit\u00e9 ainsi que diverses m\u00e9dailles pour h\u00e9ro\u00efsme en devenant le premier as de la guerre a\u00e9rienne du Viet-n\u00e2m, avec cinq victoires a\u00e9riennes (des MiG-21 nord-vietnamiens) \u00e0 bord de son F-4.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t(Dans la plupart des forces a\u00e9riennes, le chiffre de cinq victoires en combat a\u00e9rien donne droit \u00e0 porter le titre d’as. Cette classification est totalement officieuse, sans aucune existence au niveau officiel et hi\u00e9rarchique, mais d’une tr\u00e8s puissante force promotionnelle, tant pour le milieu des pilotes de chasse que pour l’image que l’ext\u00e9rieur entretient de la guerre a\u00e9rienne. Le titre d’as est h\u00e9rit\u00e9 des d\u00e9buts de l’aviation, lorsque les premiers pilotes d’avant 1914 \u00e9taient d\u00e9sign\u00e9s comme des as, d’apr\u00e8s la carte \u00e0 jouer.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tDevenu un h\u00e9ros pour la droite r\u00e9publicaine, Cunningham avait r\u00e9int\u00e9gr\u00e9 la vie civile et men\u00e9 campagne contre le mouvement anti-guerre d\u00e9mocrate et l’establishment<\/em> washingtonien qu’il accusait de d\u00e9faitisme. Les titres de noblesse s’accumul\u00e8rent : ami du patriarche am\u00e9ricaniste John Wayne, d\u00e9fenseur d’une d\u00e9fense forte, sauveteur avec d’autres du programme F-14 Tomcat<\/em> un moment menac\u00e9 par des restrictions budg\u00e9taires et la quasi-faillite de la firme Grumman qui produisait l’avion, consultant grassement pay\u00e9 chez ce m\u00eame Grumman sauv\u00e9 des eaux A la Chambre, \u00e0 partir de 1992, il \u00e9tait devenu un des plus s\u00fbrs soutiens des grands programmes a\u00e9ronautiques, gr\u00e2ce notamment \u00e0 son expertise du Viet-n\u00e2m et son aur\u00e9ole de h\u00e9ros des batailles a\u00e9riennes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tCunningham, ou un vrai destin am\u00e9ricaniste, American Dream, sort of<\/em>…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tMis en ligne le 29 novembre 2005 \u00e0 08H59<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Le d\u00e9put\u00e9 de Californie Randy S. Duke Cunningham (63 ans) a d\u00e9missionn\u00e9 de sa charge de membre de la Chambre des Repr\u00e9sentants apr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 jug\u00e9 coupable de corruption pour un montant \u00e9valu\u00e9 \u00e0 $2,4 millions. Cunningham a annonc\u00e9 la double nouvelle en pleurs, au cours d’une conf\u00e9rence de presse qui se transforma, comme d’habitude… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4867,3858,1571,2671,1175],"class_list":["post-67058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-as","tag-corruption","tag-cunningham","tag-us","tag-viet-nam"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}