Foreign technology acquisition at David Taylor Naval Shipyard

Tom hints — without disclosing — at how the Navy obtained Soviet titanium weld samples for analysis. "Someone basically robbed a scrapyard, a shipyard." 30-35 years before the lecture (~1980).

We learned that was one of the ways. I shouldn't tell you too much about how I know, but I've had to use a security clearance previously. They did get some foreign technology. I went down to David Taylor afterward, and I had — I won't say how you can get something that they had — someone basically robbed a scrapyard, a shipyard. This is 30 years ago, 35 years ago, so I don't mind telling you that much. But they had the technology. They had welds, and I came down to look at them, and a lot of them were electroslag welds.