The New Yorker - 18.11.2019

THENEWYORKER, NOVEMBER 18, 2019 55

umo and Nadia Milleron have made more than a dozen trips to Washington. They are the first Americans to sue Boeing over the crashes.

lyst, had misgivings. In his January,

2013, newsletter, after an earnings call,

he fretted about Boeing’s unwilling-

ness to learn from the Dreamliner prob-

lems. “There was no contrition or soul-

searching on the call about how the

787 could have gone this wrong,” he

wrote. “Instead, the call emphasized

some impressive sales and profit num-

bers. It was like a farmer showing off

a great crop, but not mentioning that

the tractor just broke, he fired the me-

chanic, and outsourced tractor main-

tenance to Bolivia.”

T

he government used to provide

a counterweight to corporations

that compromised safety. Owing in great

part to the activism of Nader and his al-

lies, in the late sixties and early seven-

ties agencies such as the National High-

way Traffic Safety Administration, the

Occupational Safety and Health Ad-

ministration, and the Consumer Prod-

uct Safety Commission were founded

to protect citizens.

As early as 1971, however, there was

a backlash. That year, Lewis Powell,

prior to serving on the Supreme Court,

wrote a memo calling on corporations

to more aggressively fight regulations.

He singled Nader out as a threat, “a

legend in his own time and an idol of

PHOTOGRAPH BY CURRAN HATLEBERG