Why such a stir? Last month PBS aired a documentary based largely on Snell’s research. The film, “Taken for a Ride,” alleges that GM conspired to destroy the trolley industry in the 1940s. GM shot back at PBS, calling the film “an electronic cheap shot.” There will be harsher words when Snell’s book arrives. Among his allegations: that GM collaborated with the Nazis. A GM spokesman hasn’t seen the manuscript–nor has NEWSWEEK–but he dismisses what he’s heard about Snell’s work as “old, discredited myths” and calls the Nazi charge “totally false and irresponsible.” Though the allegations are ancient history, he expects a war of words when the book hits shelves late next year. “This book lays open the entire corporation for re-evaluation,” he says.
That’s big talk for a first-time author. But this isn’t Snell’s first volley at GM. As a Yale law-school student in 1971, he published a paper detailing GM’s alleged anti-competitive practices in the 1920s. After graduation he organized a Senate investigation of GM. By 1976 he’d begun writing the book, spending years collecting documents from archives. After finishing a draft in 1981-too boring, said his editor, former Knopf president Robert Gottlieb-he spent a year reading Shakespeare, searching for ways to polish his prose. Now he’s finishing a massive rewrite, and Knopf editor Katherine Hourigan promises “worldwide attention” when it hits shelves.
It’s questionable how much attention he’ll get. While Nader’s book alleged problems with a hot, current-model car, Snell’s deals mainly with events before 1960. “Hardly [anyone] is alive who was here then,” says a GM spokesman. And while no one disputes that GM wielded immense influence in the auto industry’s first half century, Snell’s portrait of an all-powerful GM will be weakened by the fact that today GM is working to turn itself around after a decade of troubled times. As Snell finishes the manuscript, he says it will be worth the wait. “Some writers build cottages,” he says. “I want to build a cathedral.” Nice goal. But for his handiwork to have any impact, he’ll have to finally get it out of his computer and into the bookstore.
