Comparing My GM defense with your defense of IPCC
Son
I just came across some commentary criticizing the IPCC scientists. I thought about your defense of an IPCC-type coworker when I recalled what happened to me.
In 1965 I was a rising star at the General Motors Engineering Staff and had just finished the development of the XP784 (Toronado) by the Structure and Suspension Department. I had been requesting a transfer to the GM Proving Grounds to work with Lou Lundstrom in the auto safety section that had no name at the time. That was denied repeatedly.
Later, I was offered the chance to transfer to Chevrolet Research and Development instead. I would work with a new, secret R&D Product Analysis Group (PAG). I was not particularly anxious to work with the lawyers on 14th floor of the GM Building downtown. But, the recruiters said, “You will be fighting for the freedom of all design engineers like yourself to make new innovative products.” That did appeal to me because of my development of the first GM front wheel drive car. (Yes, I knew there was another attempt before WWII). Ralph Nader was already making news finding fault with many American automobiles. Then, I discovered that the PAG, was composed of Chevrolet engineers all housed in a building that was off campus (near but not at the Tech Center
Because I had already shown that I was a good writer and could explain things well, I was given some assignments in addition to working specific cases in the Midwest . Among those neat jobs, I supervised our motion picture and editing crew. That was neat because there was training from the GM TV commercial-making people. We shot movies around Detroit
More importantly, for the PAG staff of investigators and designated courtroom witnesses, I was to find and critique everything written about the Corvair. I reviewed books, newspaper and magazine articles, and even radio/TV interview commentary about our poor little picked-on small car. PAG was particularly incensed by stuff from Ralph Nader, Karl Ludvigson and ATLA – the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. They are the ones who were behind the majority of lawsuits claiming the Corvair to be defective in design with the air cooled rear engine and the swing axle rear suspension.
I read everything, including negative reports prepared by GM people within the Chevrolet Tech Center
Then I bought a dozen wide sample cases and had the R&D mechanics install Pendaflex rails. These contained copies of the “bad stuff” and my rebuttals, and several were carried by each designated witness to review (in his hotel room, NOT in court) before testimony.
Before I transferred to PAG, I was one of the engineers at the GMES who criticized the design or the car that became the Corvair when the Corporation asked the S&S group to do so.I was also empowered by the Legal Staff to go to the PG and Chev Engineering Building
I was then (my subsequent career well established that) very good chassis engineer. I was certain that the handling of the Corvair was dangerously defective, and that it also had poor crashworthiness, even by the early standards. Unsafe At Any Speed was published by Ralph Nader in 1965. In fact, I was convinced then, that the lower control arm struts[i][ii] and the location of the front of the one-piece steering shaft[iii] were more critical than the engine and suspension.
So, there I was during 1965 and 1966 making movies and “stories” about how wrong the critics of the Chevrolet Corvair were. I was aware that the Corporation was doing all it could to discredit Mr. Nader and the big-time Personal Injury/ Product Liability lawyers who were killing us. I was working with the locally assigned defense lawyers to convince them that Corvair injuries were primarily the consequence of stupid drivers.
Near the end of my year and half tenure with the PAG, I became aware that I was working for the dark side, doing bad things.
Almost every week I sat with Frank Allen, a large friendly downtown lawyer. I had the most comprehensive knowledge of what information was in the collection of documents we had gathered and stored in a unused office on The 14th floor of the headquarter building of General Motors. Frank and I would review the requests for documents and admissions (Such as: Is such and such true?) sent to us by lawyers for the plaintiffs. I had a ready list of docs to provide for certain familiar requests. Within GM, written things fell into these wanted categories: test reports, interoffice memos and letters, and especially minutes with attendee lists from executive meetings. These things would be triggered by a DWO (Design Work Order), a BWO (Build work order) or a TWO (Test work order). The first would indicate the objective of a project from management. The TWO was most fruitful for the “other side”. A TWO sent to the car test staff at the Milford Proving Grounds would eventually produce a series of performance reports. Some would, in engineering lingo, be condemning the handling, among other things, of our Corvair.
After the initial few Corvair cases, the plaintiff lawyer knew what types of things would be helpful to their case. Generally, trial judges approved early interrogatories (INT) asking for lists of the documents, with the PG number and title. I knew that there was one PG report that was very damaging to our side. I now longer recall the specific words and numbers. It was something like “Corvair (TWO12345)” PG16456. When the original boilerplate lists were typed up and preserved to answer routine Requests For Production, an accidental error resulted in the addition of an extra digit in the PG title, so that it was known to the plaintiffs as PG160456. That became one of the reports that the other attorneys would request.
Frank and I could laugh and withhold the damaging PG 16456 by stating that we could not find a report like PG160456. I had dug up and deposited numerous original damaging documents on the 14th floor that were withheld with a clever lie. The only copies were in my sample case collections in my office. Anything in my place was covered under attorney-client privileges. Thus, some requests for docs that we knew to be harmful to our side were answered with this routine statement: We (GM) have searched in all places where such a document would customarily and reasonably be found and found none. That was exactly true. I made sure of it.
**
And then, at the PAG Christmas party, I mused to others that I would not feel too badly if GM lost two of my cases because, in my investigation, I was sure that there have been no problem if the injured had been in any other make of car.
A few weeks later, despite just getting a raise, I was declared ripe for a RIF and transferred to a really crummy assignment in the bowels of the Chevrolet Engineering Center
I hope you can understand why I doubt that scientists in the IPCC GANG are really honest scientists. I was a dishonest engineer for two years.
Dad
The Corvair front suspension had a two-piece lower control arm. The outer end contained the ball joint for the steering knuckle. The main part was a hat-shaped stamped steel piece as used on most cars. There was a steel rod fastened to the rear edge of that stamping, near the ball joint. The steel rod angled back and inward to a bushing attached to the frame rail. That rod was pointed directly to the side of the gasoline tank. The tank was supported directly under and ahead of the passenger compartment toe board – where the passenger’s feet normally sit. The illustrations that follow are the best I could find. The top one shows the layout but not the actual components. The lateral arm shown is a casting. The lower picture does show the components. The frame mounted bracket is in the center. You see a threaded nut on both sides, squeezing the rubber bushings. When a frontal impact on a front wheel is severe, it will drive the strut rearward, to the right in this picture, and strip the threads on the nut at the left. The strut rod then moves toward the fuel tank and punctures it like a javelin.
[iii] The 1960 model Corvair, introduced in autumn 1959 had a small aluminum bodied steering gear box attached to the side of the sheet metal frame rail. It was about two inches behind the left end of the flimsy band-aid bumper. The worm-gear shaft inside was one piece with the entire steering shaft that ran rearward and upward to the hub of the steering wheel. In the initial release, there were no universal joints or double-tubular sections that would collapse when the front end was pushed back.
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