H. B. Moreno to J. A. McKinney and M. Harris on Asbestos de Mexico (1979)

A three-page Johns-Manville memo of January 4, 1979, from H. B. Moreno to John A. McKinney, J-M's president, and Monroe Harris, written before their visit to Asbestos de Mexico, in which J-M held 40 percent. Moreno warned that "there are still some severe environmental problems at Barrientos," the company's main plant. He explained that J-M, as a minority shareholder, could not legally manage the company, and that for years it had "pleaded with the Asbestos de Mexico board of directors to invoke the U.S. environmental standards."

What it shows

Moreno described an April 1977 agreement with Banco Nacional, the controlling shareholder, under which J-M took on "the responsibility of 'managing' the company" as far as the law allowed. He listed the steps since then: a new technical license, a new management team under Ricardo Cabrera, a market study, an industrial hygiene survey in the fall of 1978, and a corrective program "to correct all environmental problems" that Cabrera had promised to largely finish by April 1. Moreno closed that Asbestos de Mexico "will continue to be a major fiber customer." W. B. Reitze's memo of November 1978 sent the hygiene survey; by July 1980, G. Earl Parker reported that progress had stopped.