The 'acquisition' of the BAe146 by Eastwest always reminded me of the scene from Joseph Heller's 'Catch 22':
Milo Minderbinder: "
Here Yossarian, try this. Its Chocolate coated cotton candy".
Yossarian: "
Yuk! This is inedible! You can't expect people to eat this!".
MM: "
They have to learn to like it. I bought Morocco's entire cotton crop. Now I cant get rid off it. If I coat it with chocolate, we can sell it as cotton candy".
Yossarian: "
Milo, this is REAL cotton! It's still got the seeds in it!"
MM: "
Yes, but they have to learn to like it, I can't get rid of it otherwise. Remember, what's good for the syndicate is good for the USA"
....substitute 146 for cotton and Minderbinder for Ables and this is the rationale of how EW got the 146's.
Regarding Hawke's daughter, it has been widely discussed in MSM that Ables gave her a job in the Golden Wing lounge at Canberra as part of her rehabilitation from heroin addiction (Pilger, D'Alpuget). However, let's give credit where it is due and overcoming such an addiction is testament to her inner strength and is probably one of the few decent acts that Ables did in helping this young woman.
EWL: Before you Cark it, someone should do an oral/video history with you of this period, because you are one of the few unbiased sources of memory of the industry during the 70/80/90s
