Du Pont: Behind the Nylon Curtain

"A Dirty Dupont Secret---Again?" By Ben Bagdikian December 17, 2005 In 1974, Gerard Colby Zilg, a former congressional aide with access to large quantities of corporate information, wrote a book about the DuPonts and the imperial way they ran their corporation. The book was called DuPont: Behind the Nylon Curtain. Published by Prentice-Hall, it rapidly sold out its first 10,000 printing. It created public interest. The New York Times Book Review said it was "something of a miracle" that the 25-year-old author had written a book with such authority that was masterful. Publishers Weekly said the book would be "useful for future historians." In ways not clear, DuPont got a copy of the manuscript before it was published. (This writer had a similar experience. When my first book, the first edition of The Media Monopoly, was still in manuscript, Simon and Schuster got a copy of the manuscript and the publisher's General Counsel wrote to my publisher, Beacon Press, threatening to take action if Simon and Schuster did not see the manuscript before publication and remove anything that might be seen as defaming the publisher. The New York Times got word of this pre-publication threat and wrote a news story. It did wonders for book sales. But how S & S saw the manuscript beforehand remains a mystery.) In the 1974 DuPont case, the book was saleable enough that it was slated to become the selection of the Fortune Book Club, a subsidiary of Time,Inc. . DuPont lawyers got on the case, threatened the Fortune Book Club and Prentice-Hall, and more powerfully threatened to cancel all DuPont ads from Time. Inc. publications. Time, Inc. and Fortune-Books cancelled its plans and Prentice-Hall stopped promoting the book. Zilg, the author, sued Prentice-Hall and DuPont for conspiracy under the First Amendment and anti-trust collusion in restraint of trade. He never won against DuPont but he did win against Prentice-Hall ---- after four years of litigation. That was in 1974. Now in 2005, when Glen Evers who had worked for DuPont for 22 years as an engineer, he discovered a DuPont product with possible public health problems, he, too, like Zilg years before, discovered that major corporations do not fail to use their power to silence its critics. In 1974, Gerard Colby Zilg, a former congressional aide with access to large quantities of corporate information, wrote a book about the DuPonts and the imperial way they ran their corporation. The book was called DuPont: Behind the Nylon Curtain. Published by Prentice-Hall, it rapidly sold out its first 10,000 printing. It created public interest. The New York Times Book Review said it was "something of a miracle" that the 25-year-old author had written a book with such authority that was masterful. Publishers Weekly said the book would be "useful for future historians." In ways not clear, DuPont got a copy of the manuscript before it was published. (This writer had a similar experience. When my first book, the first edit

A Dirty Dupont Secret---Again? By Ben Bagdikian December 17, 2005 In 1974, Gerard Colby Zilg, a former congressional aide with access to large quantities of corporate information, wrote a book about the DuPonts and the imperial way they ran their corporation. The book was called DuPont: Behind the Nylon Curtain. Published by Prentice-Hall, it rapidly sold out its first 10,000 printing. It created public interest. The New York Times Book Review said it was "something of a miracle" that the 25-year-old author had written a book with such authority that was masterful. Publishers Weekly said the book would be "useful for future historians." In ways not clear, DuPont got a copy of the manuscript before it was published. (This writer had a similar experience. When my first book, the first edition of The Media Monopoly, was still in manuscript, Simon and Schuster got a copy of the manuscript and the publisher's General Counsel wrote to my publisher, Beacon Press, threatening to take action if Simon and Schuster did not see the manuscript before publication and remove anything that might be seen as defaming the publisher. The New York Times got word of this pre-publication threat and wrote a news story. It did wonders for book sales. But how S & S saw the manuscript beforehand remains a mystery.) In the 1974 DuPont case, the book was saleable enough that it was slated to become the selection of the Fortune Book Club, a subsidiary of Time,Inc. . DuPont lawyers got on the case, threatened the Fortune Book Club and Prentice-Hall, and more powerfully threatened to cancel all DuPont ads from Time. Inc. publications. Time, Inc. and Fortune-Books cancelled its plans and Prentice-Hall stopped promoting the book. Zilg, the author, sued Prentice-Hall and DuPont for conspiracy under the First Amendment and anti-trust collusion in restraint of trade. He never won against DuPont but he did win against Prentice-Hall ---- after four years of litigation. That was in 1974. Now in 2005, when Glen Evers who had worked for DuPont for 22 years as an engineer, he discovered a DuPont product with possible public health problems, he, too, like Zilg years before, discovered that major corporations do not fail to use their power to silence its critics. In 1974, Gerard Colby Zilg, a former congressional aide with access to large quantities of corporate information, wrote a book about the DuPonts and the imperial way they ran their corporation. The book was called DuPont: Behind the Nylon Curtain. Published by Prentice-Hall, it rapidly sold out its first 10,000 printing. It created public interest. The New York Times Book Review said it was "something of a miracle" that the 25-year-old author had written a book with such authority that was masterful. Publishers Weekly said the book would be "useful for future historians." In ways not clear, DuPont got a copy of the manuscript before it was published. (This writer had a similar experience. When my first book, the first editio

This book was allegedly removed from print under pressure from the Dupont family - which will probably enhance its value. It is certainly worth a read, but the author is extremely aggressive, almost vindictive, in his treatment of the Duponts. For example, he relates the Dupont's theft of a meal in Newport, but doesn't mention that a sizeable amount was left for it. Little information is provided on the Duponts in Europe, or on the Biedermanns who heavily financed the family, but there is much dated detail on Dupont assets, including stocks.