Press Abuse
Story of Knut Royce and Resulting Arms Limitation News Coverage and Corrections
Newspapers do not send their reporters on junkets to Europe unless they were reasonably sure the information they would obtain was worth the cost.
A friend of Vera's who worked for the KGB told her that she was being followed when we were in Moscow working for BEPA. I can only assume that the CIA or MI6 contacted Dick's engineers who had continued the project. The intelligence people had thick files on this subject and someone leaked them to the news media.
Royce returned to Newsday, a Long Island tabloid, after a short employment with Hearst Newspapers in 1987. Reagan was dropping the "evil empire" idea and preparing to become buddies with the Russians. The military industrial complex was very comfortable with their large budgets, and some Congressmen were looking for a peace dividend. Perle and Weinberger were out of the Pentagon, but the unit for putting out bad press on the Soviets was still in place.
The Pentagon wanted to put Commerce on the hot seat and get this OLD hot item in the press before Gorbachev arrived to sign the arms limitations treaty in December 1987.
Royce interviewed Cooke in Scotland and as usual took very careful notes that enclosed as: 541-CookeRoyce.html
Cooke alerted Vera that the newspapers were looking for me. She let Knute Royce stand in the rain and did not open the door. He gave up and put a short letter under the door asking to meet me. Royce made at least one score by locating an electrical service man that worked at the embargoed site for Tom Dick.
I was in Rancocas on my way to Japan. After reading Cooke's memo I decided to call Royce. He would not settle for a telephone interview. I had to go to New York in any case to pick up a visa and catch the flight to Japan so I agreed to meet him there. I prepared some documents for what turned out to be a four-hour interview. Royce appeared to be a reasonable reporter so I provided him part of the truth. I used four days of my allowed days in the territory of the USA. The total was now six.
The trip to Japan was to start the engineering contract to plan a new facility for IMM. Everything was going right so in a couple of days I was on my way back to Scotland.
Tom Dick rented office and manufacturing space from a scrap dealer called Ireland alloys. The world market for superalloy scrap had dropped dramatically in Reagan's second term, and they needed new income and another niche in the market place. My offer to give them exclusive sales rights of a new nickel niobium mix I conceived in Brazil was very tempting. In return they agreed to give me space and money so Dick could build me a facility for the economic densification of carbon insulation products that I planned to purchase from Calcarb. Assuming they could obtain a government grant.
I studied the chemical analysis of this new superalloy and saw that I could use iron rather than nickel to produce a superior niobium alloy. I needed a research furnace to prove the idea. Dick found an old facility that he installed in the laboratory of a local university in 1949. This old furnace needed a little repair, but I was able to carry out seven experiments. This work proved to me that a better and much cheaper alloy could be produced.
I was concerned that Royce had the story wrong. I collected a pile of documents to prove my story. I flew to Miami on the 18th of October 1987 because my round the world ticket would not allow New York without a change. Royce agreed to pay my hotel bill if I would wait in Miami, because he was closing the story with his editors and their lawyers. Royce called me several times but in the end was not able to get permission to visit Miami to look at all the documents. The stock market fell like a rock while I was waiting for Royce on BLACK MONDAY in October 1987. He told me he had a story and that a Mack truck full of documents would cost his paper too much to follow up. I spent two nights at the airport hotel before traveling to Rancocas. Newsday did not pay for these expenses as promised.
Most of my time in Rancocas was spent explaining the Royce situation. Rowan was very upset with the red lady (Communist women) reference that also pointed out that Roberts had married a woman from Czechoslovakia. His main concern was the line of questions that Royce was asking that implied a deception on the part of Consarc to receive permission in the first place. He expressed a fear that we would have to return the insurance money.
Rowan was really upset when I showed him newsletter 35, published in 1977. Royce inferred that this order covered our sale. After he read the document that Bob Froberg faxed to me he calmed down. This newsletter did not describe our sale and in addition was canceled in 1979.
A letter arrived from Commerce to Consarc that gave details on the congressional hearings. I called Royce with the information about the hearings. At first Royce denied any knowledge of this, but finally pointed me to Claudia Beville, a congressional staffer on the Commerce committee. I called several times before finally making contact with Beville. Another very interesting document arrived from Commerce. It showed how Calcarb products were added to the embargo list. The document was false and appeared to have been altered after its original issue. Neither Royce nor Beville showed any interest in this document. One thing was very clear, Beville knew Royce was reporting on this subject and showed respect for him during my first telephone call. I blew six more days for tax purposes and now it was fourteen of the thirty-five allowed. In the final accounting I had to add one day because the flight was over Alaska early the next morning.
I arrived back in the UK and did not know at the time that a meeting was held on about October 28 or 29, 1987 at the IDA to discuss the controls on carbon fiber board according to court records of the FMI trial. The president of FMI appears to have been in attendance. The only reason for this meeting that I can find was the pending questions from the congressional hearings on carbon-carbon. There was a strange note in the report of a meeting by IDA on September 10,1986. It is typed on another typewriter. There is a date of November 14, 1987, and this same typewriter added the following: "This insulation is needed for furnaces used for manufacture of carbon-carbon reentry vehicle thermal protection nose tips/heat shields." That statement was false.
I had learned in early 1984 that this material was useless as insulation in an induction furnace. I had hoped to seal my new product and use it as the container for carbon reactions, but certainly not as insulation, because it could not work in an induction furnace.
In Scotland I prepared documents for Royce, with the understanding that he would turn them over to the Committee. The documents selected were about my business activity at BEPA, letters from Commerce and the letter from Rowan stopping the project. I was careful not to give him documents that would get me in trouble with the British Official Secrets Act.
I also sent him a photograph we had taken of the Soviet Inspectors to Loch Nest. This was used in Newsday and was shown in black and white on ABC News.
Beville was fully aware of Royce's investigative reporting. We discussed meeting in the Caribbean so that I would not be in the USA for tax reasons. At one point she let me know that the Committee had the power to demand testimony. Finally Beville said that we should wait to see if Royce found all the information the Committee would need.
The staff in Scotland gave me freedom to search the files for relevant information. I made copies of all documents that might be useful, including those that could be used to defend myself in the future. I bought a simple Apple computer and printer and started writing for the first time in my life. Many of the paragraphs contained in this edition remain in this book. Each time this web site is reviewed I try to correct the grammar and make the story a little more readable.
I really thought Royce was going to write a story similar to his "Bombshell is a dud" release. At least I was sure that he understood that the furnaces supplied were not the type that produced high strength carbon fiber. On the 6th of November 1987 the press agents came to the house to take pictures.
I tested my new fax machine and alerted my brother in Miami to keep a lookout for news. The Royce story was headline news on November 8, 1987. He really blasted my company and me with his story.
The next day the long story continued in Newsday.
My attempt to give the Pentagon and the Department of Commerce the facts failed on every attempt. I faxed Lane seventy-two corrections and misquotations in the Royce and Lane articles. Newsday understood my objections but apparently did not believe that corrections were in order.
I finally was able to reach Beville by telephone. She was aware of the details in the press and found me guilty in her tone of voice, saying I had admitted the ovens could cook anything put in them.
A story ran in Newsday a couple of days later that the Pentagon confirmed that the factory was a military one. I told Beville that the military factory was a joke and the vital equipment was more of a joke, and that I had documents and photographs to prove it. We agreed to be in contact later, because she was not sure a hearing would be held.
The British press showed only minor interest in the stories in Newsday, but the world press picked up the story for a brief time.
I departed Scotland for Tokyo on the 13th of November to meet Consarc's project engineer for the IMM project. He had seen the first Newsday issue not the ones that followed. While were we resting after the long trip he was able to read all the articles. I pointed out the hundreds of mistakes in the press.
After meetings in Tokyo with Yamaguchi and his staff we traveled to a small shipbuilding town just south of Kobe. Aioi was built by IHI for the sole purpose of building ships and this market place for Japan was dead. Jess Cartlidge had his Inductotherm factory and office located just outside Kobe and was well positioned to obtain the order for the air melting equipment IMM needed. There was not much for Consarc to do because IMM was going to move their melting chamber and vacuum pumps from Tokyo.
On the second day in Aioi Jess invited me to his home for dinner. He lived in an exclusive area of Kobe that was set aside for foreigners. He had a beautiful view of Kobe bay from his very large house by Japanese standards. Jess and his Australian wife both dressed in formal Japanese kimonos and asked me to speak in Japanese. It was a fun and informal evening but Jess did make one thing clear. If I worked against Inductotherm in any way we would have to become friendly enemies.
When we returned to Tokyo Yamaguchi gave me The November 23, 1987 issue of Time Magazine International. This publication gave creditability to Newsday's stories, and may have been the reason ABC News was willing to run the story later.
The attached photograph was obtained from Newsday was printed in Time in November 1987 beside a man in prison convicted of selling computers to Russia.
Before leaving Tokyo I gave a small press conference to the leading newspapers in Japan. I pointed out that our furnaces were not the types required to produce high strength fibers and they printed that Consarc denied the stories in Newsday and Time. One of the reporters gave me a paperback book that was a satire about the press. "Dwarf Rapes Nun and Flees in UFO"
On my way back from Japan on November 27, 1987 I met Cooke and Wilson at the airport in Paris. They were returning from Iraq with orders for clamshell furnaces. I told them that the business with Iraq would bite their tail and I would not touch that business with a ten-foot pole.
I called Beville to offer to come and testify if they could convince the IRS that I was not in the USA for tax purposes. Congress does not have such powers. She called me back to say that the committee was looking at the reasons that departments of government did not report the facts to each other, not the actual facts of the Consarc case.
Time used the same story in its US issue on November 30, 1987, just a few days before Gorbachev's arrival in the United States. The cover story was about alcoholics, a problem most of us peddlers understand. This issue did not mention my name or use the Newsday connection. They did not use my picture, or mention my Russian wife. Perhaps Time's legal department had decided that I could sue for libel if the facts about me were not correct.
A new Aeroflot airliner equipped to carry the head of state of the Soviet Union landed at a military airport just outside London at exactly ten in the morning on December 6, 1987. Margaret Thatcher and her husband met the flight that carried Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife. The mood was festive, and the British press covered this short visit as a celebration of the end of the cold war.
Three hours later the airliner lifted off for the flight to Washington. The international issue of TIME magazine was part of the reading material on board and its cover was about illegal sales of high technology items to the Soviets during the period when Reagan and Thatcher attempted to control them. One of the items was my sale of equipment that TIME said was perfectly legal. They found a small addition to their story and my picture in a tabloid newspaper story printed two weeks earlier. The cold war was ending, but the spin department of the Pentagon was still busy putting out stories about the Evil Empire.
Gorbachev landed in Washington at exactly four in the afternoon. He was greeted with full honors but not quite as festively as the London arrival. The press coverage was extensive and upbeat.
On December 7, 1987 the telephone rang in Scotland: "This is Jonathan King of ABC World News Tonight. We have been studying the Newsday report and would like you to tell your story on TV. I am reading the story in Newsday and would like you to go on TV right away to tell the full story." He asked me if I would travel to London for this purpose. I told him. "No way."
Gorbachev was on TV pressing the flesh like a political candidate. One television reporter noted that he probably could win the presidency because he was so popular. It was not all fun and games because Reagan and Gorbachev had some tough decisions to make. Colin Powell was at those meetings, and his book, My American Journey, published by Random House in 1995, detailed the way the two men reached that historic agreement.
Bill Wilson, producer of ABC News called late in the evening on the 8th of December 1987 saying in an urgent voice that he had to have my answer because he was chartering an airplane to send his crew. He said the story would run with still photographs. The statement would be: "Some Pentagon officials say that because of Metcalf's Russian wife there may be espionage involved."
I told him that Roberts was the company spokesman on this subject. He called again to say that the news story would run with stills and a statement that I refused to appear on camera. He might even say that the CIA suspected espionage.
The young lady from ABC's London office convinced me that their coverage would be fair. They had attempted to contact Roberts but he was not in his office. ABC did not want to talk with Roberts or Rowan or anyone else. They wanted METCALF WHO HAD A RUSSIAN WIFE, because would make hot news at that time.
ABC's team arrived at my home in Scotland at eleven in the morning on December 9, 1987. The cameraman was a Canadian who had a Russian bride living in Frankfurt. The soundman and the cameraman spoke some Russian. They did not want my Russian wife's voice or picture. The still pictures made her look like a KGB agent, and live pictures would spoil the effect.
Before we started, the opening statement was read into my recorder
I am not the company spokesman or employee and will not speak about their equipment. Roberts is the company spokesman. Technical data is restricted by the regulations. I will not answer any type of technical question that is controlled by technical data regulations. And most important, I allowed you here because of a threat by ABC. Your man told me in an angry voice that the story would run with my still pictures and in the time slot reserved for me. He would say "Certain Pentagon officials say that because Metcalf's wife is Russian there may be espionage involved
They already had their story and would not tell mine. They were told, "I don't trust you, but under the threat of ABC News to tell a bigger lie, let's do it." The interview took place on camera in my study and was recorded with ABC's knowledge. It lasted an hour and they got some good information on camera. Vera snapped a photograph just after they left showing me exactly where I was sitting. The sign on the wall behind my head that showed for a second or so was clear on the TV sets but I am sure nobody saw it.
The sign was a copy of a Book Cover that a reporter gave me in Tokyo. At the time it was popular with those in the press because it was true and funny. DWARF RAPES A NUN FLEES IN UFO This little story in this paperback was about misleading headlines. The reporter was at a rock concert where a rock band led by Shorty (DWARF) was sexually molesting (RAPES) a singer from a group named the Sisters (NUN). She protested loudly and the police came. Shorty left the area in his helicopter to avoid arrest. When the editor asked the reporter what kind of aircraft he used the reporter said unidentified. (UFO)
If you look carefully the sign behind me is readable:
ABC should have gotten some footage of the real thing, because right in Bellshill there was equipment operating which was just like the embargoed equipment. The furnaces were producing carbon insulation for industry under the Calcarb name. The management of Consarc refused the cameras, so the crew lost two hours before arriving in London to transmit the film by satellite just in time for the evening news.
My brother in Miami was alerted to be ready to record ABC during that evening. It was a major news day with Gorbachev in town and most other programs were canceled. We did not expect to be on the prime time evening news.
Television coverage was nonstop the day Reagan and Gorbachev signed an Arms Limitation agreement that was the beginning of the end of the cold war and the fall of the Soviet Empire. The Aeroflot airliner had already lifted off before the nightly news aired the short negative story.
A cousin called my sister in North Carolina to report that I was in jail in England. My sister called my brother to tell him the news, so he was able to calm her down. I called my mother to tell her that her hillbilly son had made the cover of Time and ABC News. She understood that I had done nothing wrong, but said: "Son, it would have been better if you made the headlines on another subject."
The next day Royce was the only reporter to get the story that had details about the hearing in congress. Would Congress arrange a hearing on the day Gorbachev was in town just so ABC could show it on the six o'clock news, then give a single reporter all the facts of that meeting, and then have the nerve to say it was a closed and classified meeting? Looks like it!!.
I BELIEVE THAT THE NEWSDAY REPORTING LED INDIRECTLY TO THE ARREST OF FMI SEVERAL YEARS LATER.
Small newspapers like the Burlington County Times do not have large staff's. They did not pick up the embargo from the wire services in 1985. They did not read the Long Island newspapers but ABC television got their attention. They were able to pick up the wire service reports and the official line from the Pentagon.
They sent their reporter to interview Roberts at Consarc. Rowan wanted to attend so the editor came along. Rowan told me that he felt the local press would print the correct story. Rowan told me that he was concerned with Robert's comments that shifted all the blame to me. He said he cut off this line of questioning led the newspaper to find me a mystery man.
On Christmas day Soderstrom's friend arrived from Australia arrived. His firm sold some type of triggers that can be used to set off an atomic bomb. He was on his way to Iraq with misgivings. I told him that Consarc Scotland was selling some furnaces to Iraq. He told me I could find a gold mine in Iraq. I told him I would not touch this business with a ten-foot pole. It would only be a matter of time before Iraq would be on the embargo list.
Vera and I spent a quiet New Year's Eve discussing why all the bad press was printed about us. She could not comprehend that freedom of the press is very valuable to a free society and that from time to time the innocent will be found guilty in order to get the whole story in print for historical purposes. We had a long discussion about the fact that my roots were in America and that the base of operations for our future must be in America. I think she understood, but her mind was set on living in the center of London with her friends and doing business with Russia from there. I agreed that it could be profitable to set up a company with a London base. I also agreed to obtain a long term visa to the U.K. so she could get a British passport, with the absolute understanding that I would never give up my American passport. As partner in our net worth, she agreed that I could move our cash assets to the States to invest in a new company.
The trip to the US in early 1988 was to set up a new US company. My brother picked me up at the airport in Miami. He had been given $200 to buy the necessary documents to form a company during my last trip. BEPA was born again.
I called the producer of ABC News on January 4. He wanted to meet me in Washington the following week. Naomi began to type my notes for the book. My brother attempted again to get the Miami Herald interested in my story. Hour after hour was spent explaining to my brother the whole true story that caused the bad press and the business that I wanted to start in the States.
I called the Burlington County Times on January 5,1988 about their editorial. The reporter talked with me for less than five minutes. The Burlington County Times ran the story that included several misquotes as a front-page headline item.
A few days later I met with Consarc in New Jersey. Marino told me that my engineering contract for our Japanese customer was finished. I tried to talk with Rowan but he made me mad so I hung up the phone. I do not remember the actual number of days in the USA but I was getting close to the limit allowed by IRS.
Upon my return to Scotland I met with Consarc UK to discuss the new furnace line I had started with the company before my resignation. They wanted to retain me to work on this item. I told them I could not engage in a paid activity until my visa request was approved. They agreed to assist me with the visa problem. Later that day Wilson called to ask me to make peace with Rowan if I wanted to continue working with him.
The next day I met Dick to discuss setting up carbon densification in Scotland. He agreed to assist me with the visa problem. Two days later Yamaguchi called me from Japan to say he was not satisfied with Consarc's offer. He asked me to consider being their project leader. I asked him not to order equipment until I looked at the plans.
I called Marino and he agreed in principle that I should be hired to handle the Japanese project. He was concerned that Rowan was very angry with me for hanging up on him.
Yamaguchi faxed me the details of Consarc's offer. I did not agree with the plan so I hired Dick to make me a simple set of plans. Yamaguchi liked my plans so I would control the project as consultant to Consarc or IMM.
I asked my Glasgow accountant to be sure the records of the dormant company reflected the real inactivity. I asked him to find out why British tax authorities were waiting so long to calculate my prior tax obligations.
Consarc assigned Raufer to continue communications with me on the Japanese job. I agreed to work with him as best I could if Consarc would bend a little.
I gave Consarc my simplified plan for Yamaguchi, including a split of the scope of supply and the method of selling the project. Raufer wrote up the proposal to IMM along the lines that were agreed. I met with Roberts later in the day. He said that he would do business with me or anyone else but wanted family agreements. I told him I was not family and wanted only a fair share. He arranged a private meeting with Rowan. He was not really angry with me anymore. We spoke in philosophical terms about my beating in the press. He felt my main mistake was talking to Royce. He agreed that his interview with the local press had also damaged me. He was not in agreement or disagreement with me setting up a carbon densification company in the USA. He agreed that Roberts was overreacting on the IMM matter. He told me that when a person considers himself threatened, action could be expected.
Roberts and Marino were invited to the meeting and my plan to be Yamaguchi's project engineer was settled. The plan was that Yamaguchi would buy its services from Consarc, Inductotherm and others. Items like installation services, water systems, and other items as agreed between the parties. I felt the project could be completed to my specifications within the budget the customer was about to get approved. It was agreed that it would be proper if I did not become involved in the sale from Yamaguchi's side at that time. It was my understanding that Consarc would pay me for all previous work for this customer at the same rates the Japanese would have paid me.
I received a fax from Yamaguchi on February 10. He wanted me to come for a meeting from February 14 to 19. I faxed Marino to see if he wanted to pay for the trip. I got approval but Consarc would not give me a travel advance. Commerce returned my call and confirmed that I would need a license for providing technical data to Japan.
I was off to Tokyo on the 14th of February 1989 to meet with IMM and Consarc. It was a good meeting with my position was made clear to all parties. Consarc's Japanese salesman was a native and a very good engineer and diplomat. That evening we called Marino and Raufer in the States. Everything was proper.
I called the duty officer (CIA) of the American embassy in Tokyo and asked if they were interested in my situation the embargo of three years ago. After taking my passport number they called back later to say that someone would like to see me but they would not discuss anything on the telephone.
I met with the CIA in the morning. They knew about BEPA from my passport number. They assumed that I was guilty and asked me if I had planned any contacts with Russians in Japan. They also made an uninformed statement to the effect that my efforts had improved the Soviet rocket capability. I told him that was nonsense and that I would give the full facts to a fully informed and capable agent in the USA. This offer was conditioned on a two-way communication that would inform me what was in the files about me and my wife. I decided I would never talk with the CIA again.
I went to the commercial section of the U.S. Embassy to get details on how my customer could obtain a tech data license for my type of services. They were not useful except to give me an end user's statement.
Yamaguchi and I took the form given to me by the US Embassy to the Japanese government office to obtain the documents required by our government. They refused to issue these documents until a contract was signed. It seemed that new laws had locked up business, because they would not issue an international export certificate until the exact details were defined. But I could not give the customer the details to write the order until I had a license.
Raufer wanted me to bill IMM for the February trip before he agreed to pay me. I told him I would bill IMM and refund any monies received because they had been told that Consarc would pay for all my services until a contract was signed between the parties. Raufer had information from his Japanese salesman that they were going to move their existing furnace and no new equipment would be bought. There was no way I could earn a living working with Consarc.
On March 8, upon my return to Scotland Consarc UK gave me a check for $1,000 that did not even recover my expenses on their behalf for 1987. Wilson confirmed unofficially that he would not use my services again. He told me that he was sorry, but Roberts had given the order. The next day IMM sent me a copy of the proposed contract that included my services in California in mid-April 1988.
In late March 1988 Vera returned to the Miami area where we used a timeshare for an excellent resort in Palm Beach Florida. My brother, Hal, told me that Duff Matson was hosting a group of Special Forces and CIA men at his hunting lodge for training that week and that Peoples Magazine would be covering the event. Hal had been to these gatherings several times and was sure Duff would invite us.
I jumped at the chance to meet the press and with Vera get a solid story in the press. The location of Matson's Everglade place was south of Interstate 75, "Alligator Alley", on a coral stone road. It was the only private property in the area since the rest was a national park. The size of the property was one-mile square. This is where the Cuban community thought Duff allowed the Bay of Pigs troops to train. Duff would not confirm or deny this rumor. The house was not elegant but was livable. The lot was on elevated ground that had been formed years earlier when Duff used a dragline to form three lakes near the house. One of the lakes was populated by Koi that came to Duff when he clapped his hands. Special palm trees and other bushes and flowers not native to the swamps were all over the extended yard.
Taking Vera into this group of me was akin to throwing her into a din of tigers. The Soviet Union was still functioning and to these men they were the enemy. Duff escorted Vera during most of our visit and took photographs of he in the command jeep he used to drive for General Frederick in Europe during WWII. He allowed her to hold a machine gun for a photograph and gave me the chance to fire the machine gun.
I spent at least two hours talking to the press before joining some of the meetings. An ex-CIA man showed many devices for killing and taking photographs with hidden and secret devices. I did not attend many of the sessions but found them to be serious but not very important. It sure was not a drinking party. I was to meet Duff only one more time before his death. This meeting was at Duff's summer house in Highlands NC in 1989 when Hal and his wife spent a day and one night with Duff and his wife Gloria. Hal had a very special relationship with Duff in his final years and even at his deathbed.
I did not know it at the time but I met a future customer that day. John Donovan, nicknamed Dynamite, was an expert in explosives. John appeared to be several years younger than I was and with his large muscular body and a very short hair cut he stood out in this group.
During this trip I bought a better Apple for BEPA. This computer was used by my brother's wife to type in the words from the press clippings and many of the documents contained in the attachments on this web site. This Apple was very popular in the schools at this time so I gave it to Hal. The school system was awaiting the new Macintosh under final tests at the time.
In early April Marino refused to hire me to go the presentation of the IMM/Consarc paper in San Diego or to be at Consarc when the customer planned to visit Rancocas. Consarc paid me $10,250 in April but did not explain why they held $10,000 back from my invoice. It was easy for me to understand that they did not think this customer was going to buy a furnace. Paying me was a waste of their money. It was plain and clear that Consarc had no plans to use my services. This trip used my last days outside the US for tax purposes but gave a full deduction for 1987 and a part deduction for 1988.
Vera and I flew to San Diego using BEPA funds, to attend a Vacuum Society meeting with IMM. We met the customer at the airport and had dinner before taking them to their hotel. I had lunch with Raufer the next day and he understood that I would take over this customer. Vera and I took the customer on a two-day tour in Mexico after the meeting.
We traveled to Rancocas and had a dinner meeting with Yamaguchi and the Consarc people. Vera told me that night that RJ (Consarc's Japanese employee) had the look of death. He died soon afterwards. After meetings the next day at the Consarc offices we took the customer to Atlantic City for the night. Consarc did not want to pay for the next day to review my thoughts on how to handle the job. I was fired and Consarc was not going to hire me again
Vera and I returned to Scotland. On April 26 I prepared reservations for Yamaguchi's arrival. I had lunch with Wilson of Consarc to discuss the Yamaguchi visit that included a walk through Calcarb. Two days later we took the ferry to Ireland with to meet Yamaguchi in Dublin. The next morning we drove across the border to Northern Ireland. There were no border checks or immigrations at the border. A squad of military was checking cars near a small town north of the border. Yamaguchi was a good Catholic and started to criticize the British troops. I told him we were not in the correct setting to argue politics out loud. We continued through Belfast to the northern shores where rooms were reserved for the night. This area has some very interesting rock formations and the views are spectacular. It will be a good place for tourists when the battle between the religions is finally settled. We passed through a security check before driving our car on to the large ferry to return to Scotland. This way in and out of the UK was to confuse British immigration and intelligence services in the future.
On May 2,1988 Yamaguchi was not allowed to visit Calcarb, even though we had made an appointment. Wilson was away from the office on a sales call. The managing directors' comment was that I should have made the appointment with him directly. Yamaguchi was insulted and refused even to see the Consarc operation. He saw that Consarc was jerking my chain and asked me if there was another way. I really did not want to set up another equipment building company. I wanted to use the cash that could be derived from part of the action on his job and set up a carbon densification operation.
We toured part of Scotland, including a stop at Saint Andrews where Yamaguchi bought some sweaters and a golf club. From there we drove to Brighton with an overnight stop midway in the trip. The next night we had dinner with Dick and his Russian wife. Dick tried to sell his ability to design the furnaces Yamaguchi would need.
The next morning I drove Yamaguchi to Heathrow and used my Royal Bank credit card to buy his a ticket back to Japan.
News of my activities in Scotland traveled fast. A fax letter from Rowan was on my desk. My reply and other documents are attached:
Vera and I flew back to Miami a few days later, intending to meet Consarc and Rowan to settle our differences. I called Marino and he told me that the IMM project was dead. He did not see any future work for me but would examine my invoice. I called Rowan but he had no interest or real objection to my new carbon plans. With IMM business dead, he did not need me. The bridges were burned.
Vera's visa was about to run out. We rushed back to Scotland and I obtained a two months visa until August 1988. They held Vera's passport and gave her a white piece of paper stating that she was allowed entry but was likely to be detained. A camera with exposed film and floppy discs were missing from my suitcase. I now suspect that British security agents lifted the items. All of my other documents were in my hand case.
We went to the Immigrations office at Glasgow airport in an effort to get Vera's passport. I asked the officer to call the Home Office. He returned a few minutes later to say that our file was SECRET. I told him the police had called yesterday about her visa. He said he would inform them and we should not worry.
On June 24, with the assistance of James Hamilton (former MP) immigrations extended Vera's visa to August 4, 1988, in line with mine. Vera agreed if we did not get a business visa soon that we had to move to the States to start the selling operation in the USSR. She felt that with the new political climate a London office would be much more convenient and cheaper for travel. I wanted Consarc to pay their bills, and telephone efforts were getting nowhere.
I traveled to the States two days later. The cheapest ticket at that time was through Shannon, Ireland. My meetings with Consarc were not in anger but they were cool. Marino agreed to pay some of my invoices. I returned to Scotland at the end of July. My return immigrations check was Ireland.
I decided to take the time to have some dental work completed. I had paid in advance for this work two years earlier, when the pound and dollar were equal. On the 4th of August 1988 I started major dental work that had been needed for a long time. Some teeth were removed to prepare for a bridge.
Immigrations asked us to come to Glasgow airport for an urgent meeting. I was sure they had some sort of visa so that our work in the UK could continue.