Sam now began to question Smirnov’s results during the meetings with the GM; however, the GM didn’t want to listen to anything Sam had to say. Instead the GM began to issue an unusual command. Sam was to go into the lab and make data. In fact, the GM didn’t care if Sam made a single actual physical sample. “Give me data” is what the GM said, “I don’t care about samples.” Sam now knew for certain everything was being made up. If Smirnov said anything at all the GM would make unusual statements. One such statement was “You know Smirnov, Stalin wasn’t a bad guy, he did many good things.” To which Smirnov replied, “GM you should not say these things.” When Sam told me this I thought to myself, gee I wonder what some of the people who worked for the GM that had previously suffered under the red tide would have to say about that? Most likely they would be like the other members of the herd, cowards. Ok, another digression on my part (back to Sam’s story). According to Sam many of the other students in the herd also knew things were being falsified but not a single one would stand up for Sam. Later Sam told me how one student (Mr. Gandhi) told Sam that Dr. Smirnov and Ms. Knowitall (another American student) had managed to do all of the experiments for her Ph.D. degree within a very short (ca. 1-2 weeks) period of time. The hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge of rampant fabrication was there.
Finally when Sam demanded Smirnov provide physical samples only 4-5 were provided (out of > 50 possible runs) and Sam was not overly surprised to find (on 1H NMR and GPC analyses) that they weren’t even close to being what they were supposed to be. Sam showed the results to the GM. The GM asked Sam if he wanted to still work for him. Sam replied “If it means making up data then no.” The GM then did something unexpected. He called in his new secretary (Mrs. UK) and then went on to say, “Take down all I say. Sam had failed to fulfill his obligations.” Then before the GM could utter another word Sam stated that he didn’t have to listen to another word and he was going to get an attorney and then he walked out. The next day the GM left the US to Europe.