Thomas Gatke of Gatke Corporation to Vandiver Brown on Gardner's Quebec Work (1944)

A one-page letter of July 25, 1944, from Thomas Gatke, president of the Gatke Corporation of Chicago (a maker of brake linings and one of the sponsors of Dr. Leroy Gardner's asbestos research), to Vandiver Brown, Johns-Manville's secretary. Brown had sent him Gardner's July 15 letter on the Quebec X-ray review. Gatke agrees the Quebec material "will make a valuable supplement to the final report" and writes that even if it costs more, "some additional expense would be justified."

What it shows

Gatke adds that, from his talks with William Fehnel of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Metropolitan "have had access to the information concerning the tests which our group has underwritten," so that the sponsors should in turn have the benefit of Metropolitan's asbestos dust work. The letter shows the sponsoring companies following Gardner's research closely and sharing information with their insurer. Gatke had signed the 1936 agreement that funded the experiments.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

President of Gatke Corporation, Thomas Gatke in a letter dated 7/25/44 observed to Vandiver Brown that: "I imagine the Metropolitan is intensely interested and since I know from my talks with Mr. Fehnel, of the Metropolitan, that they have had access to the information concerning the tests which our group has underwritten, it is likely that both Dr. Gardner and Mr. Fehnel feel that we should have the benefit of such work as they are doing in Asbestos dust experiments."