27 



Meanwhile, further information was accumuhiting in the FTC 

 San Francisco office: 



Its San Francisco attorney-examiner did not consider the NBS test results 

 conclusive. He felt that the iSTBS report would have had greater effect if actual 

 service tests had been made. He felt that the overwhelmingly satisfactory experi- 

 ence of many bay area users, reinforced by tests approving AD-X2 made at the 

 Universitv of San Francisco, outweighed the NBS findings. He, therefore, recom- 

 mended on December 8, 19.50, that the FTC drop its case without prejudice to 

 the right of the Commission to reopen if and when warranted by facts. He was 

 overruled by reviewing officials in both Washington and San Francisco who felt 

 that the laboratory tests at NBS were more competent and conclusive than the 

 experience of users. Attempts were then made to work out a stipulation under 

 which Ritchie would modify some of his advertising claims. Ritchie refused to 

 accept any restrictions on his advertising. The investigation continued.^^ 



It is not clear from the record whether or not the article in Newsweek 

 magazine, issue of December 11, highly favorable to AD-X2, had 

 appeared before the December 8 recommendation was made in 

 San Francisco. 



Of the first test of AD-X2 run by NBS, Dr. Astin was later to 

 e.xplain : 



The test was actually run on the Bureau's own initiative, but there had been 

 prior requests from Senator Knowland and from the Oakland Better Business 

 Bureau. About that time, the Federal Trade Commission had asked the National 

 Bureau of Standards to run an evaluation on another battery additive, and it 

 was felt that with very little added effort, AD-X2 could be put in and run along 

 with the other additive, and that was the occasion for starting the test.^* 



The first NBS report was considered defective by FTC from the 

 legal [)oint of view, because the samjjles used in the test had not been 

 obtained by FTC in the course of its investigation. Accordingly, a 

 request was made by FTC for further tests. Dr. Walter J. Hamer, 

 who had replaced Vinal upon his retirement, after further tests, 

 repeated the earlier NBS finding in a report dated July 21, 1952.*^ 

 Dr. Astin summarized the rather confusing sequence of NBS tests as 

 follows : 



There was a request from the Post Office Department in September of 19.51, 

 but the Post Office Department was given, in response to that request, the data 

 obtained from the test beginning January 1949, and the second test for the Post 

 Office Department started about the first of 1952, and there was almost simul- 

 taneously a second test about that time for the Federal Trade Commission. So 

 the second and third tests which w^ere run by the Bureau on AD-X2 were in the 

 winter of 1951-52. I do not recall the exact dates.^^ 



A further test was run publicly in June 1952, with Dr. Astin per- 

 sonaUy in charge, in an eft'ort to satisfy Ritchie and his supporters by 

 following precisely the test procedure he had specified. Like the other 

 tests conducted by NBS, it found no merit in AD-X2 and was called 

 faulty by Ritchie.*^ 



The quasi-judicial character of the FTC as a regulatory agency 

 largely insidated it from external pressures by interested parties or 

 from congressional intervention. Apjjarently the only congressional 

 exchange was with Senator Henry C. Dworshak, who wrote FTC, 

 October 24, 1951, to suggest that it might be advantageous if tests of 



" LawTence. Op. cit., pp. 9-10. 



" Hearings. Op. cit., p. 258. 



" Report of the Committee on Battery Additives. Op. cit., p. 10. 



<« Hearings. Op. cit., p. 259. 



" Idem. Also, see Hearings. Op. cit., pp. 222-225. 



