Dr. Gerald V. Bull, Space Researcher, had become a professional arms dealer. Dr. Bull was not a stellar success as an arms dealer, because by all accounts he had no real head for business. Like many engineers, Bull was obsessed not by entrepreneurial drive, but by the exhilirating lure of technical achievement. The atmosphere at Space Research Corporation was, by all accounts, very collegial; Bull as professor, employees as cherished grad-students. Bull's employees were fiercely loyal to him and felt that he was brilliantly gifted and could accomplish anything.

SRC was never as great a commercial success as Bull's technical genius merited. Bull stumbled badly in 1980. The Carter Administration, annoyed by Bull's extensive deals with the South African military, put Bull in prison for customs violation. This punishment, rather than bringing Bull "to his senses," affected him traumatically. He felt strongly that he had been singled out as a political scapegoat to satisfy the hypocritical, left-leaning, anti-apartheid bureaucrats in Washington. Bull spent seven months in an American prison, reading extensively, and, incidentally, successfully re-designing the prison's heating-plant. Nevertheless, the prison experience left Bull embittered and cynical. While still in prison, Bull was already accepting commercial approaches from the Communist Chinese, who proved to be among his most avid customers.

After his American prison sentence ended, Bull abandoned his strange enclave in the US-Canadian border to work full-time in Brussels, Belgium. Space Research Corporation was welcomed there, in Europe's foremost nexus of the global arms trade, a city where almost anything goes in the way of merchandising war.

In November 1987, Bull was politely contacted in Brussels by the Iraqi Embassy, and offered an all-expenses paid trip to Bagdad.

From 1980 to 1989, during their prolonged, lethal, and highly