Last week, hope for a public answer to Black's allegations dimmed when lawyers dropped the lawsuit on advice from the State Department. According to the lawyers, pursuing the suit would have jeopardized payment of compensation to more than one million slave laborers and other Nazi victims that the German government has agreed to pay. IBM bemoaned the fact that Nazi policies were compromising the bottom line. As an American who bought an expensive IBM product half a century after the war, I am more than frustrated at losing an opportunity to get answers to questions raised in the book and lawsuit. IBM owes the public more than a passive response to its history.
Corporate responsibility is now part of everyone's life.
Boycotts have been held to hurt companies responsible for creating suffering through sweatshops. Public pressure has forced drug manufacturers to lower the cost of AIDS drugs for dying Africans and South Americans. Because its papers remain unindexed in New York and German archives, they are beyond public scrutiny. IBM should immediately push to open all archives and all its records. Doing the right thing is good business.