Myth 1. Now that leaded gasoline is banned in the U.S., there is no reason to revist the 75-year-old controversy. My opinion: This is a neglected and vital part of our history. It was the "Chernobyl" of the 1920s and one of the great environmental disasters of the 20th century. Only in recent years have European nations banned leaded gasoline. It is still widely marketed in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Myth 2. Only in the 1970s did scientists become aware of the dangers of leaded gasoline. Fact: GM's Charles Kettering and Thomas Midgley were well aware of the dangers and were repeatedly warned by scientists from Harvard, MIT, Yale and Pottsdam about this "creeping and malicious poison" long before it was put on the market in 1923. Myth 3. The 1921 discoverty of tetraethyl lead was the product of a systematic and scientific search through all the possible octane boosting alternatives. Fact: This is a widely accepted view but, in light of recently available historical evidence, wildly off the mark. In fact, leaded gasoline was orginally meant to be a bridge to higher octane fuels of the future, especially alcohol (ethanol) from cellulose.

Myth 4. The news media attacked the oil and automotive industries once the gruesome deaths of refinery workers became public in October of 1924. The press labelled it "loony gas" and sensationalism swept away rational considerations. Fact: The workers themselves named the fuel additive loony gas because they knew it was, literally, driving them crazy. The media "attack" was nothing more than reporting on a commercial enterprise with grave public health implications. GM, Standard Oil (Exxon) and the Ethyl Corp. employed a physician who at one point insisted to the press that "nothing be said about this in the public interest." When that request was shrugged off by the media, any subsequent reporting would be seen as an attack.

Myth 5. GM's Kettering and Midgley were not fully aware of the risks of killing workers using the manufacturing process they developed. Fact: Midgley had lead poisoning himself in 1922. In early 1923, two workers died at GM's Dayton, Ohio facility. DuPont took up the manufacturing process in 1923 and lost five workers in the early months of operation. Even so, the construction of the Standard Bayway, N.J. plant in 1924 shocked DuPont engineers who protested that the plant was being built without regard for worker safety. Kettering, however, issued "war orders" to get the plants at full capacity in the shortest possible time.

Myth 6. The 17 direct deaths and dozens more indirect deaths from leaded gasoline production and distribution in the 1920s were mainly attributable to a failure of management and/or staff to follow instructions. Fact: This was the public relations line persued by the company in subsequent years, and most historians have repeated it. Yet according to DuPont engineers who testified in a 1950s federal case, it was the manifestly unsafe plant design, where workers came into direct contact with concentrated fumes from the reactor vessels, that was responsible for the initial disasters.

Myth 7. Kettering and Midgley discarded other alternatives after leaded gasoline was introduced because it was technically and economically the best choice for a detonation surpressing fuel additive. Fact: Leaded gasoline was not the most obvious alternative. There were still many technical problems with leaded gasoline, and engines had to be redesigned to use it. The reason Kettering was in such a hurry (see Myth #5) was that Arco, Sunoco and other major companies were marketing high octane gasoline from catalytic cracking processes without resorting to lead additives.

Myth 8. The Surgeon General's committee on leaded gasoline gave it a "clean bill of health" in its 1926 report. Fact: Many of the members of the committee felt that the study was "half baked" and that the public health question had not been answered. They strongly recommended continued independent testing (which did not occur until the 1960s).

Myth 9. Historians today have all the documentation they need to understand the environmental conflict over leaded gasoline in the 1920s. Fact: Standard, Ethyl and GM archives may still contain thousands of unreleased pages of original documentation concerning the development of leaded gasoline. Most historical accounts until recently have been based purely on * tertiary * historical sources that were highly refined by GM public relations experts.

Myth 10. Economic and technologically sound alternatives to leaded gasoline were not known at the time and are not available today. Fact: Along with catalytic cracking and alcohol additives, a considerable number of detonation surpressing alternatives were widely known and, in fact, many were patented by GM in the 1920s and 30s. An FBI report lists over 40 GM patents in the period.

For more information, go to these links:

Leaded Gasoline Information

Henry Ford, Charles Kettering and the Fuel of the Future

Charles Kettering and Tetraethyl Lead in the Context of Technological Alternatives