Page 82 - MY STORY

company had not been asked to bid on those very large

orders, which George felt was very unfair. George’s
company did not make the all-beta alloy. I honestly told
him “I had no idea who the customer was and it might not

be a good idea to pursue this any further.” George was
adamant that he was going to get to the bottom of this, by
God! It just wasn’t fair!

One more week went by and George appeared in my
office once again, looking somewhat pale around the gills

and a little shaky. Apparently, he had diligently been
chasing down leads to find out who was using all that

titanium. He told me that in the middle of the night his
phone rang waking him up from a sound sleep. The voice
on the other end of the phone announced himself as
General XXX (I don’t recall the name George told me),

that he was calling from the Pentagon, gave George a
number to call back if he wanted to check on the call’s

validity, and told George “that if you don’t want to end up
in Leavenworth for 25 years you’d better stop nosing
around to find out where all that titanium was going!”

I knew there were only a few companies in the San
Fernando Valley that could possibly use sheet stock of the

type being shipped, but after hearing George’s story I