Academic literature on the topic 'Rockwell B-1 (Bomber)'

In April 1974, Admiral was absorbed into Rockwell International’s growing empire. The Vietnam War contractor was, according to the New York Times, on a “debt-financed acquisition binge that lasted almost a decade” as it spread its reach into aircraft, defense, aerospace, electronics, and appliances. Admiral, meanwhile, was still churning out televisions, radios, and home appliances at factories across the Midwest. Productive as it was, the little company couldn’t afford the massive capital outlays required to modernize, market, and survive in the increasingly brutal electronics and appliance businesses. Accustomed to the massive revenues and fat profits of big government contracts, Rockwell International trimmed employment at the plant, investing $25 million to automate the chest-freezer line. In 1975 Rockwell added a 60,000-square-foot microwave oven facility, and in 1978 it spent $12 million to retool the top-mount refrigerator line and erect the “Blue Goose,” a massive machine the length of a football field that spat out finished metal cabinets. In earlier times, investment meant more jobs. Under Rockwell’s rigorous ethic of scientific management, it usually meant fewer. Admiral accounted for about an eighth of Rockwell’s revenues. “We weren’t even peanuts to Rockwell,” Michael Patrick said. It was a new era for Appliance City. One afternoon in the mid-1970s, Dave Bevard was let out of work an hour and a half early. Production workers were instructed to gather in the vast parking lot across the street from the factory. Under a circus tent, a Rockwell representative and the Admiral plant manager told workers about the importance of the B-1 bomber to the nation’s defense, to Rockwell’s future, and, consequently, to Galesburg jobs. By this time Rockwell had production of the B-1 in over forty states, making itself the model practitioner of militaryindustrial growth. The plan was to use its nonmilitary production facilities in a lobbying campaign to maintain one of the most lucrative military contracts in history—around $10 billion at the time. Workers signed premade postcards for their congressman and went home early that day.