So it came about that the FBI was watching over the movements of employees...
The recent reports of a Chinese industrial spy stealing data from Ford Motor Company for his homeland and a cabal of Koreans doing the same to General Motors for the Russians remind me of a funny story from several decades back — the first time I ever heard of serious international commercial spying.
Beginning in the 1920s, Ford manufactured much of its own glass for vehicle windows, starting with a glass plant in Dearborn’s Rouge, once identified as the world’s largest industrial complex.
In the post-World War II years, Ford expanded its glass operations by opening additional plants in Nashville, Tulsa and the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Further, Pilkington Glass of England licensed Ford to use its highly efficient (and secret) manufacturing process called Float Glass.
In those Cold War years, Eastern European countries behind the Iron Curtain were assumed to be taking their orders from Moscow for whatever transpired in international commerce. The Western countries had diplomatic relations with the Soviet empire, but both sides kept close eyes on the other.
So it came about that the FBI was watching over the movements of employees of the Washington embassies of Iron Curtain countries. A supposed commercial attaché from the Bulgarian Embassy traveled to Detroit where he met with an immigrant Turkish employee of Ford Motor Company.
Our government wondered what was going on and, I suppose via wiretaps, discovered the Bulgarian wanted the secrets of Ford’s glass manufacturing process. The Turk was willing to obtain those secrets and sell them to the Bulgarians. The assumption was that the Bulgarians were merely surrogates for their Russian masters, who were trying to modernize their own auto industry even then, or maybe they were just trying a few short cuts to developing a glass industry in Bulgaria.
Meanwhile, back in Dearborn, the home of Ford Motor Company, a couple of FBI agents were tailing the Bulgarian and his Turkish pal, right out of a tale by spy novelist Eric Ambler.
Now at that time, all Ford Motor Company Dearborn pool cars had a red-and-white target sticker mounted on the windshield above the rearview mirror, so that gate guards would permit them to enter company properties without being stopped to show identification. You can probably imagine what happened next.
For a planned illegal visit to the Dearborn Glass Plant in the Rouge to show the Bulgarian the secret process in action, the Turk drew a pool car from his office location and drove it into the Rouge plant with his new Bulgarian friend as a passenger. They were waved in with nary a snag.
Not so the two FBI agents in the tailing Bureau car, which of course had no bulls-eye sticker on the windshield. Ford security would not let them into the Rouge, despite their pleas and the fact that at that time most of Ford top Industrial Relations people and especially Security management were former FBI agents.
So the Feebies had to notify their former Bureau friends at Ford headquarters, explain to them what was going on. They later proceeded to arrest the Turk and mark the Bulgarian for deportation for violating diplomatic protocol.
Needless to say the bulls-eye yarn made the rounds among amused Ford employees. I imagine catching today’s industrial spies was a lot more difficult for Ford and GM, and likely did not involve the FBI first.