Don't forget about IBM's dealing with the Nazis.

jm
----- Original Message -----
From: Jerry Leslie <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2002 11:47 PM
Subject: [HP3000-L] OT: Corporate Criminal Behavior Nothing New


> Some have tried to blame the current wave of corporate criminal deeds
> on Bush or Clinton, but such greed goes back to at least WW II.
>
> In the years just prior to WW II, some U.S. corporations deliberately
> violated embargoes on the sale of certain strategic items and technologies
> to Japan...
>
>    http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh55-6.html
>    Senator Harley M. Kilgore and Japan's World War II Business Practices
>
>    "...By early 1944, Kilgore was convinced that if international cartel
>    agreements had been investigated before 1936, the United States would
>    have had a more realistic view of the international situation. The
>    committee devoted much attention to the impact of cartels in the
>    development of the German military machine. However, it was the
>    startling testimony on the use of business relationships by Japan to
>    further its militaristic policies that was most revealing to the
>    Kilgore Committee.
>
>    In September 1944, James S. Martin, Chief of the Economic Warfare
>    Section of the War Division of the Justice Department, testified, "in
>    the decade before Pearl Harbor, a constant stream of information
>    flowed to Japan as a result of Japanese Commercial transactions with
>    American firms--technical information and economic data of the utmost
>    importance to Japan's armed forces." Industries most involved included
>    oil, aircraft, machine tools, and electronics. Kilgore pointed out
>    that this occurred while American citizens were not even permitted to
>    determine whether or not they were being fortified.
>
>    [snip]
>
>    Some aircraft parts manufacturers cooperated with the Japanese and
>    offered ways around the embargo. Bethlehem Steel Export Corporation
>    accepted orders on the basis of part numbers with no reference to the
>    fact they were airplane parts. The American Hammered Piston Ring
>    Company, which could not conceal the fact the parts were for aircraft,
>    accepted orders made directly through its export manager. Only part
>    numbers were ordered and all other specifications were provided in a
>    separate confidential letter. The Aluminum Company of America refused
>    to accept orders, but it sold the dies and shipped them to another
>    factory where the parts could be produced. Canton Prop Forgings &
>    Manufacturing Company shipped to the Japanese if they ordered part
>    numbers and Thompson Products, Inc. shipped valve forgings utilizing
>    the same process. After the president's embargo of military equipment
>    and parts, which became effective on July 5, 1940, Douglas Aircraft
>    Company offered to deliver ordered parts to the Mitsui office with the
>    suggestion that the Japanese label them as automotive parts.
>
>    [snip]
>
>    In fact, the committee and the Justice Department's Board of Economic
>    Warfare cooperated fully, and the possibility that information gleaned
>    through Justice Department investigations might get to Kilgore struck
>    fear in the hearts of business executives who did not want their
>    questionable activities exposed..."
>
> Here's a site that shows the Japanese versions of the Douglas DC-3,
> whose design was licensed by Douglas...
>
>    http://www.wwiitech.net/main/japan/aircraft/l2d/
>    WWII TECH: World War II History - Japanese Aircraft -
>    Douglas / Showa / Nakajima L2D (Tabby)
>
> Fortunately for the U.S., the "cooperation" between U.S. corporations and
> the government that exists today did not exist in the years prior to WW
II,
> or we'd speaking Japanese now. Japan had biological and chemical weapons
> developed by their Unit 731:
>
>    http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/NanjingMassacre/NMU731.html
>    Unit 731: History and New Evidence
>
>    http://www1.odn.ne.jp/~cam39380/epage/epage139.htm
>    Pioneer of Biological Warfare, Japan (Unit 731)
>
> and submersible aircraft carriers/submarines that were built for air
> strikes against the West coast:
>
>    http://www.pacerfarm.org/i-400/i-400.htm
>    The Transpacific Voyage Of the I-400
>
> Considering that some corporations have been securing secret "dead
> peasant" life insurance policies on low-level employees, it won't be
> long before they claim salvage rights on employees that die on the job,
> so organs may be harvested and sold to add to senior management bonuses.
>
> --Jerry Leslie   (my opinions are strictly my own)
>   Note: [log in to unmask] is invalid for email
>
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