Former Ford PR chief Jason Vines, a key lieutenant of CEO Jacques Nasser at the time, says the company bugged his telephone during the company’s 2001 Firestone tyre crisis.
In a new book, Vines says, after he was fired along with Nasser in October 2001, a Ford security official told him his car and phone had been bugged for a “few months”. Under Michigan law, bugging a phone, even a company-owned phone, would be a felony.
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The book What Did Jesus Drive? Crisis PR in Cars, Computers and Christianity is published on 1 November although advance copies have been seen by the Detroit News.
The newspaper reported Vines recounts a meeting in the office of the company’s then-general counsel John Rintamaki when he complained about a boss. Rintamaki turned up the radio in his office and began playing some loud classical music, similar to a scene in the movie All the President’s Men and whispered to Vines “they’re listening”.
Asked about Vines allegations about bugging, a Ford spokeswoman told the Detroit News: “We are not aware of anything of this nature happening.”
Vines, a PR man with DaimlerChrysler, Chrysler, Nissan and Ford, also recounts Nasser’s decision in May 2001 to recall another 13m Firestone tyres during the SUV crisis that ultimately linked more than 270 deaths to faulty tyres on Ford’s Explorer SUVs. The book says Nasser told Ford of the decision and, soon after, the New York Times Detroit bureau chief called Vines about rumours of a new recall.
Vines asked Ford security to check the reporter’s home, cell and office phones to see if someone at Ford had called him. The security official told him an hour later: “You don’t want to know.”
Following another leak to the reporter, security officials explained who they believed was behind the leaks: “His name is on the building,” Vines writes.
The Ford spokeswoman told the newspaper the accounts detailed in the book about the Firestone tyre crises happened more than a decade ago under a very different leadership team and that “memories and accuracy differ from person to person”.
