50 



3. No one who has used this product feels in any way that he has been de- 

 frauded, either by the manufacturer or by the product. 



4. That Mr. Ritchie's advertising is conservative and that his product does 

 exactly what his advertising claims.'*^ 



Shortly after receipt of this memorandum, the Post Office Depart- 

 ment, on August 20, took action to cancel the fraud order against 

 AD-X2. It is possible that this memorandiun was too imqualified in 

 its endorsement of the product. However, in view of the evident 

 efforts by Ritchie to expose his product to tests by NBS, MIT, the 

 military departments, U.S. Testing Co., Chicago Development Co., 

 and others, it is difficult to conclude that Ritchie himself considered 

 AD-X2 as other than meritorious. It was accordingly reasonable for 

 the Post Office Department, in dismissing the case, to conclude that 

 a* * * there is insufficient proof of an actual intent by Ritchie to 

 deceive which is requhed to warrant and maintain a fraud order." ^^^ 

 Even assuming the absolute validity of the NBS test conclusions, the 

 record strongly suggests that Ritchie believed otherwise. 



There is no evidence that the Senate committee or its staff took any 

 specific interest in the AD-X2 case before the FTC. This case dragged 

 on for a number of years, before Pioneers, Inc., won final vindication. 

 While it presents an interesting question as to relative weights of 

 different types of evidence before a regidatory commission, it is not 

 particularly instructive for the purposes of this study. 



The extent of active participation by NBS in the regulatory process 

 was the subject of much of the committee's interrogation of Dr. Astin. 

 Tliis question was the main focus of Secretary Weeks' presentation to 

 the committee, and was also a main theme in Ritchie's testimony. 



The potential for discrimmatory treatment of an individual company 

 was certainly present in the complex of regulatory arrangements that 

 had evolved for the protection of the consumer. Even wider oppor- 

 tunity was offered by this complex for allegations of discriminatory 

 treatment. Thus, NBS did not test all products, but only those that 

 came to its attention. Its attention was attracted by two routes: either 

 as a consequence of complamts to regulatory agencies, who then 

 brought the ])roduct to the Bureau for test, or (very rarely) as a result 

 of direct inquiry to NBS itself. In either case, the contact with the 

 initiating Government agency might be made by a nonprofit institu- 

 tion with a public service character, but the impetus might ultimately 

 be traced to a profitraaking organization with a competitive interest in 

 having such tests made. The hearings did not reveal whether or not 

 NBS had been influenced by its having taken a technical stand against 

 battery additives, or whether it was inflexible in persisting in such a 

 finding in the face of contrary evidence. There was contrary evidence, 

 but its rejection by the Bureau was on the scientific grounds that it was 

 unsoundly based or trivial. On the other hand, the hearings did contain 

 allegations that NBS was both influenced and inflexible. Moreover, 

 the relationships that the Bureau had drifted into, with the battery 

 industry and NBBB, lent credence to the allegation. Further oppor- 

 tunity for criticism lay in the fact that two principal battery experts 

 of the Bureau had accepted employment in the battery industry after 

 leaving NBS. From the point of view of Dr. Astin, it was "very unfair" 

 to read any impropriety into this circumstance; the stature of the 



1" Idem. 



"5 Ibid., p. 27. 



