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TI: And what was the outcome of this whole thing? I mean you got this information. Were these -- was it ever addressed? Did the Boeing management ever make changes while you were there?

HM: Yeah, Abe Goo became vice president (of engineering in the Aerospace Group).

TI: I'm sorry, who did?

HM: Abe Goo, Chinese American engineer. He's a good one. But after he got to his position of being VP, he turned his back on us. And he said, "Hey, I made it on my own power and on my own skills, and I want you guys to do the same thing." This was a complete change of events. And Tom used to play poker with him once a week, and I thought we had a good ally in our camp, but that wasn't the way it turned out. And one of the things that really bothered a lot of us was the fact that we had guys like Tom Yamaguchi, who was the head of the Lunar Orbiter Program. And I got to know Tom a little bit because I was in Lunar Orbiter Program -- that was the second job I had at Boeing. And he was a good technical person and he was made a director, but he was never made VP. And so all his work became accredited to the person that became VP of the Lunar Orbiter Program, but this was another instance of the Nikkei doing the work and somebody else getting the credit. So this is why Tom felt very strongly that we should insist that a Asian become a vice president. Well it happened that Abe Goo was in Defense Programs, Space and Defense Programs area and he was a fair boy of one of the top level directors of that organization, and they made Abe a vice president. And technically it was a good, a very good selection, but on the other hand he didn't help us with our cause.

TI: Well, the salaries? Did that ever get addressed while you were at Boeing?

HM: They made a commitment to us that they would adjust salaries to the extent that they can in terms of the merit situation, the merit pool. I never saw it because I -- once you get labeled as kind of the crazy activist that I was, they put you on the back burner. In fact if you didn't get any reprimands you would be fairly lucky. But that wasn't part of my interest area at that time. So I got into more trouble later on.

TI: Yeah, we're talking about -- this is close to thirty years ago.

HM: Yeah.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.