It's not easy being the chief of one of the U.S. Department of Defense's largest contractors.  At the trial of accused terrorist David Coleman Headley, he revealed that he plotted with al-Qaida and local Pakistani terrorists to assassinate the head of Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT).

I. A Troubled Past

David Headley grew up as Daood Sayed Gilani.  The son of a U.S. government radio broadcaster and diplomat at the U.S. Pakistani embassy in Washington D.C., Mr. Gilani was immersed in American culture.  But when his parent's marriage fractured in 1960s Mr. Gilani was dragged to Pakistan and became indoctrinated with local attitudes and prejudices.

In 1977 after a coup in Pakistan, his mother came and brought him back to the U.S.  He worked at her bar and briefly married a Pennsylvania State University student, but was divorced due to the vast cultural differences.

She recalled, "When he would go to Pakistan he would get all riled up again. Infidels. He would use words like that. When he would see an Indian person in the street, he used to spit, spit in the street to make a point. I guess he was torn between two cultures. I think he liked both. He didn't know how to blend them."

Mr. Gilani went on to start a pair of video rental stores in Pennsylvania.  At the same time he was plotting a grander business venture -- drug smuggling.  A heroin addict himself, purportedly; he began smuggling the opiate into the U.S. from Pakistan.  He was arrested twice -- first in 1987, then in 1997.

In exchange for cooperating with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Mr. Gilani's sentence for the second offense was slashed.  He traveled to Pakistan several times between 2002 and 2005; ostensibly working as an undercover DEA agent and funneling information back to the U.S.

However, at the same time he was secretly attending Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) train camps.  Lashkar-e-Taiba was a local jihadist group, which advocated violence and had ties to al-Qaida.

In 2006 Mr. Gilani (Headley) changed his name David Headley to avoided problems at border crossings.  He went to work at the Chicago business of Hussain Rana, a Canadian-Pakistani who he met in military school in Pakistan in the 1970s.

Mr. Rana allegedly sheltered Mr. Headley (Gilani), allowing him to begin his more violent line of work -- terrorism.

II. Multiple Attacks Planned

Mr. Headley and Mr. Rana had close ties with Pakistani military officers and local terrorists.  Allegedly in 2008 they conspired to carry out a scheme to attack Mumbai, India's largest city.

Due to his new Christian-sounding name and American passport, Mr. Headley was able to easily visit India and conduct surveillance.  

The India government analysts have accused Mr. Headley of working as a double agent, at the time for U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who knew about his LeT ties.  Allegedly, Mr. Headley fed details about the planned attack to the U.S. government.

In an effort to protect their source, the U.S. government redacted parts of the plan, revealing only certain details.  As a result, the Indian government largely ignored the warning and the attacks proved a deadly success, killing over 164 people.

The CIA categorically denies employing Mr. Headley.

Sometime in late 2008 or early 2009, Mr. Headley made a trip to Copenhagen, Denmark to survey the offices of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, whom Pakistani terrorists were targeting due to its publication of cartoons insulting the Islamic prophet Mohammed.  

The plan, later aborted, was to attack the offices, possibly with a bomb, and also strike a local Synagogue.

Around the same time Mr. Headley made another trip to India, in March 2009, to plan more attacks.  This time he surveyed a defense college in Delhi and the Chabad Houses -- local Jewish settlements in urban centers around the country.

His plans were cut short when he was arrested in October 2009.  Soon after, in March 2010 he pled guilty in exchange for prosecutors taking the death penalty off the table and preventing his extradition to India, Pakistan, or Denmark.  As part of the plea deal Mr. Headley was to testify against Mr. Rana.

III. Testimony Reveals New Insight Into Headley's Plot

In testimony in U.S. Federal Court in Chicago, Mr. Headley revealed new details on a stunning plot to kill Robert J. Stevens, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer at Lockheed Martin.

He states his justifications, commenting in testimony carried by DefenseNews, "There was a plan to kill him because he was making drones."

The testimony alludes to the drone bombers that have been highly successful in locating and destroying terrorist strongholds in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

The plot was allegedly supervised by Ilyas Kashmiri, the commander of the Pakistani-based terrorist organization Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI), and a senior member of al-Qaida.  Mr. Headley connected with Mr. Kashmiri via ties in LeT and through Rana.

He says he used Mr. Rana's computer multiple times for research, unbeknownst to him, but that the more serious research Mr. Rana was aware of.  He states, "My research is more in-depth than Googling someone a couple of times."

In his testimony, the defense attorney for Mr. Rana, who contends his innocence, grilled Mr. Headley.

IV. Who is Robert Stevens?

Robert Stevens, 60, graduated in the 1970s from Slippery Rock University in Arkansas and later attended Polytechnic University of New York, receiving a master’s degree in engineering and management.  After a brief stint serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, in 1987 he received his masters in business administration from Columbia Business School.

After receiving his MBA, Mr. Stevens joined Lockheed Martin.  He worked there for several years and was appointed Chief Operating Officer in 2000.  From there he was appointed CEO in 2004, when Vance Coffman stepped down.

Since then Mr. Stevens has been highly regarded as among the top CEOs at a Fortune 500 company (Lockheed Martin ranks number 52 on the current list).