Richard Simpson strove to balance buyers against manufacturers
America’s first consumer-product-safety tsar died on July 21st, aged 93
YOU COULD make a good case, back in 1973, that Richard Simpson was the most powerful man in America. President Richard Nixon, who appointed him, could send battalions of young men to Vietnam and order the building of the space shuttle. But Mr Simpson, who was amiable, big-built and had a boyish smile, could order you to unplug your TV antenna immediately from the wall; make you heave your built-in gas cooker out of your kitchen; take Uncle Jack’s flaming lighter away, with which he liked to perform his trick of lighting cigarettes at a distance; and could reduce little Johnny to tears by saying no, he could not have a back step on his tricycle, to give his friends rides. His agency could force mass recalls of faulty products and, if it met resistance, bring in criminal penalties. These, in his soft-spoken way, he called “motivations”.
This article appeared in the Obituary section of the print edition under the headline “Safety first”
From the August 19th 2023 edition
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