ABSTRACT
People in Japan wouldn't believe me when, in 1982,1 told them that President Reagan would cut off American equipment for the gas pipeline from Siberia to Western Europe. “That would take world leadership for heavy earth-moving equipment away from Caterpillar and the United States and hand it on a platter to Komatsu and us Japanese! But earth-moving equipment is the one heavy industry with long-term growth potential. No government would do this!” Several of the usually superpolite Japanese came close to calling me a liar when I said that the impact on the competitive position of this major American manufacturing industry wouldn't even be considered by the administration in making the decision. It wasn't—and it couldn't have been, given American political mores.
