In testimony before a United States Senate subcommittee, Lockheed Corporation president Carl Kotchian admits that the company had paid out approximately $3 million in bribes to the office of Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.

The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the U.S. Constitution to pass or defeat federal legislation.

The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace manufacturer. Lockheed was founded in 1926 and merged in 1995 with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin. Its founder, Allan Lockheed, had earlier founded the similarly named but otherwise-unrelated Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company, which was operational from 1912 to 1920.

Archibald Carlisle Kotchian, known as Carl or A.C., was an American business executive who served as the president of Lockheed Corporation. His admission of paying millions of dollars in bribes to foreign government officials led to the jailing of Japan's prime minister and political upheaval in several countries in the 1970s.

The Lockheed bribery scandals encompassed bribes and contributions made by officials of U.S. aerospace company Lockheed from the late 1950s to the 1970s in the process of negotiating the sale of aircraft. The scandal caused considerable political controversy in West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Japan. In the U.S., the scandal nearly led to Lockheed's downfall, as it was already struggling due to the commercial failure of the L-1011 TriStar airliner.

Kakuei Tanaka was a Japanese politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1972 to 1974. Known for his background in construction and earthy and tenacious political style, Tanaka is the only modern Japanese prime minister who did not finish high school or graduate from a university.