Document O17npbmbrXVEk581nOybKxrLj

ETHYL CORPORATION Ma nuf a ct ur ing and Tr a f f ic Depa r t ment PLEASE ADDRESS REPLY TO CHRYSLER BUILDING 405 LEXINGTON AVE.,NEWYORK IT, N.Y. February 20, 19^5 PERSONAL * Dr. R. A. Kehoe College of Medicine University of Cincinnati Eden & Bethesda Avenues Cincinnati 19, Ohio Dear Boh: Thank you very much for your letter of February 1^ in connection with reports on hygienic conditions at the Baton Rouge and Deepwater plants. I certainly realize that your manifold activities make it very difficult to prepare these proposed quarterly .re ports. I would suggest that if such a course now appears to he too burdensome that we rely on you to give us pertinent informa tion from time to time and let it go at that. This would he in accordance with our past relations which, in my opinion, have been very satisfactory. However it is always quite nice, time permitting, to have summerizations which show all the facts for a period in true relation, one to the other. I have from time to time, particularly when I have been at Baton Rouge, read some of the reports you have made to the management there and I feel some what as you do, that if the distribution of such reports gets to a larger circle it tends to become more formal and probably less frank. We all realize that it is plant management we must work on for improvement and, therefore, I leave it entirely up to you as to whether it would be advisable to include me in the distribution of such reports. As a matter of fapt, my judgment sort of leads me away from receiving them. If the Ethyl man agement at Baton Rouge and Deepwater have access to the same information as du Pont, perhaps that will serve just as well. About the only thing that bothers me a little along these lines is the fact that I find myself not as well informed as du Pont management in Wilmington. Sometimes this is a little embarrassing, or shall I say that sometimes I might stick ray neck out with certain remarks only to find I did not have as much information as certain friends in Wilming ton. This is about the only reason why I might be inclined to want to see these inspection reports. Dr. E. A. Kehoe 2- February 20, 19^5 While by contract du Pont is responsible for TEL operations, nevertheless I have always accepted it as a prime principle that it is the Ethyl Corporation's business and we should have as much information on our business as anyone else. If something goes wrong from a du Pont management standpoint, then we shouldbe in a position to know the true circumstances. I allude to certain conditions that have existed in the past which need not be enlarged upon here, but I am sure that you know what I mean. Please understand that I do not wantto burden you at all as I realize how much territory you have to cover and perhaps we can continue as in the past. 3-2 KE 0001095 February 14, 194-5 D r . J . H . Schaefer, Ethyl Corporation, Chrysler Building, Hew York City 17* ' . Dear John: - I have your letter concerning my hypothetical quarterly reports. I could wish that the quarterly reports were feasi ble, but I have come to the conclusion that they are not. The reasons for this are two-fold. At present there is not the time available to carry out the critical examination of data that would be necessax*y for such purposes. More importantly, however, the data cannot be put together, at the right time. There is a lag of several weeks or sometimes months in the accumulation of all the necessary information. When we Receive a group of samples representing conditions in the two plants for a given three-months period, it is at least thirty days before the analytical results are available and the detailed clinical information on the men have been pro vided. Meanwhile under present circumstances there have been a rather large number of individual small samples taken on workmen, and tabulation and examination of these data require an additional outlay of time and trouble. Actually during the past y e a r I h a v e b e e n -unable to get the d e t a i l e d i n f o r m a t i o n on the m e n in time to study the data. I a m just- n o w g e t t i n g the information from the two hospitals that will enable us to study the data and arrive at certain conclusions. These data taken over a period of a year represent an adequate sampling of the plant, and will demonstrate the trends with considerable precision, if all of the detailed information on individuals is taken into a c c o u n t . We are getting this information together and in due time I shall have a satisfactory report for you. I should also point out to you that if we were to keep up with this job at all times, our statistical assistant here in the Laboratory would have to devote her entire time to this work. There would be no objection to doing this if it were not for the fact that the information would not be sufficiently p r e c i s e o v e r s h o r t :p e r i o d s of t i m e . I f e e l sur e that we shall be able to improve upon the present situation, but we shall not be able to give you m u c h m ore than an indication at quarterly intervals. As you are probably aware, I am visiting the plants at intervals K 0001096 Mr. J. H. Schaefer - (2) - February l1!, 1945 of f o u r to seven weeks and a m m a k i n g a rather detailed report to the management at the time these trips are made. These reports are probably better limited to the operating people, for the reason that I make some rather pointed remarks, and a m able to say certain things that I would hesitate to say to any other than a sharply restricted group of people. In doing this I am attempting as well as I know how, to make my influence felt as strongly as possible, without giving anybody offense. As you know, certain things can be talked about rather frankly inside the family when they would be most objectionable in the presence of any outsider. You can count on it that I will continue as I have in the past, to keep you rather well informed about the general status of things. Moreover, I will not hesitate to come to you for help on any matter in which it seems probable that you can accomplish s o m e t h i n g w h i c h I cannot. I n g e n eral, I think, y o u w i l l a g r e e with me that in such situations it is probably better for us to sit down and talk about I t , than to resort to correspondence cjr m o r e or less f o r m a l i z e d m e m o r a n d a . On the o t h e r h a n d , if you wish me to make a brief report to you of my impressions of the two pl a n t s at q u a r t e r l y i n t e r v a l s , I should be^ g l a d to do so. Under these circumstances such reports would be made up in large part, of impressions received at the time of m y visit to .he p l a n t , w i t h o u t the b a c k i n g of the d a t a w h i c h can o n l y b e examined and interpreted later. ' Sincerely yours, FAX ef Robert A'. K e h o e , M. I). He 0001097