General Dynamics: From the USS Holland to the Pentagon's Last Supper

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General Dynamics traces its lineage to 1899, when businessman Isaac Leopold Rice bought John Philip Holland's struggling torpedo boat company and renamed it the Electric Boat Company. Its first sale, the USS Holland of 1900, cost about $150,000 and became the US Navy's first submarine. Electric Boat built 85 submarines in World War I and 74 submarines plus 398 PT boats in World War II, growing to 13,000 workers before cutting to 4,000 when the war ended. CEO John J. Hopkins bought Canadair for $10 million in 1946, created the General Dynamics holding company in 1952, added Convair and the Atlas missile, and launched the nuclear-powered USS Nautilus in 1954.

Convair's X-6 nuclear bomber program foundered on radiation shielding weight, while the F-16 line at Air Force Plant 4 in Fort Worth reached one jet a day and more than 4,600 orders. After the Pentagon's 1993 "Last Supper" dinner with 51 contractor CEOs, CEO William Anders sold Cessna, the missile business and the F-16 line, then bought Bath Iron Works and NASSCO, kept the M1 Abrams, and added Gulfstream in 1999. The 2018 purchase of CSRA for $9.7 billion created GDIT, which Reuters reported ran a covert Pentagon social media campaign in the Philippines against the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine.

• Electric Boat's Quonset Point, Rhode Island facility pioneered modular submarine construction, which became the worldwide industry standard.
• Designer Erik Nitsche created mid-century modern posters for the Atoms for Peace conference in Geneva for the company.
• In 2008 General Dynamics agreed to a $4 million settlement over allegations a subsidiary made defective or untested parts for aircraft and submarines.
• Protesters targeted its IT contracts with the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and the company said it had no role building or running detention centers.
• It is the sole US maker of the steel bodies for the MK-80 bomb series, and Norway's KLP fund divested over nuclear and depleted uranium work.