Vandiver Brown to Sumner Simpson on Gardner Publishing Without Approval (1940)

A one-page letter of May 10, 1940, from Vandiver Brown, Johns-Manville's general attorney, to Sumner Simpson, president of Raybestos-Manhattan, headed "Dr. Gardner's Experiments." Following up a call from Simpson, Brown enclosed an excerpt from the Air Hygiene Foundation Digest of April 1940 and wrote that, although he had not read the original article, "it is apparent from the Digest that Dr. Gardner is already publishing, without seeking our advance approval, certain conclusions which his reports to us have indicated were arrived at as a result of the experiments underwritten by the textile group." He asked for Simpson's comments.

What it shows

Under the 1936 agreement, Leroy Gardner's results belonged to the companies paying for the work, and manuscripts were to be submitted for their approval before publication (the agreement). Brown and Simpson had raised the same objection a year earlier (Simpson's letter of May 1939). The latest of Gardner's reports to the sponsors at this point was his interim report of December 1939.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

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

Vandiver Brown wrote a letter to Sumner Simpson (RM) expressing concern that Dr. Gardner has already published some of his work in the Air Hygiene Digest without "seeking our advance approval"

Related documents

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