Notes of Dennis Markusson and Barbara Diemer's Interview of Hugh Jackson on J-M Health and Safety History (1978)

Three pages of typed notes from interviews on November 2 and 3, 1978, of Hugh Jackson, long a manager of Johns-Manville's industrial health program, by Dennis H. Markusson, J-M's associate general counsel, and Barbara Diemer (joined on the second day by a Claudette P.). Jackson summarized the company's past health and safety practice: respirators "were not mandatory until about the mid-1960's," Travelers did dust sampling at Waukegan in 1941 to 1947, and J-M adopted a policy of annual physical exams in 1937. He called conditions at the Pittsburg, California plant on his first visit, about 1947 or 1950, "Miserable."

What it shows

Jackson recalled that on one trip to Pittsburg one of the plant doctors named Wise (father and son) told him "he felt he could not be as complete in discussing problems with the employees as he should be because he felt management did not want him to be." Jackson and Dr. Kenneth Smith then told the plant manager what company policy was. On the Saranac Laboratory, the notes say "No contract with Saranac": Dr. Leroy Gardner worked under "a gentleman's agreement that we would have an opportunity to review publications prior to their publication," and Jackson allowed that Quebec mining people might have done some "arm-twisting" against publication. The industry's 1936 Memorandum of Agreement shows the arrangement with Gardner was in fact in writing, and gave the sponsors approval of his manuscripts.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

Johns-Manville's own chronology of what the company knew describes this document as follows:

Notes of Dennis H. Markusson and Barbara Diemer Regarding Discussion with Hugh Jackson, 11/2/78, discusses Hugh Jackson's summary of the health and safety aspects of the Manville plants. Jackson stated that respirators were not mandatory until about the mid-1960s. Jackson described the condition of the Pittsburg Plant during his first visit, which took place in either 1947 or 1950, as "miserable." Moreover, on one of Jackson's trips he remembers that either Kent or David Wise told him that he felt he could not be as complete in discussing problems with the employees because of management policy.

Related documents

• Memorandum of Agreement Funding Gardner's Asbestos Experiments at Saranac Laboratory (1936)