Battling the Enemy Within

The night shift at the General Motors plant in Wentzville, Mo., was busy putting together Buick Park Avenues and Oldsmobile Regency 98s when ten policemen quietly entered the factory. Making their way along the assembly line, the officers clapped handcuffs on twelve workers. They had allegedly sold cocaine, hashish, marijuana and LSD with an estimated street value of $250,000 to two young undercover agents who had been hired by GM to pose as assembly-line workers.

Alarmed by reports of widespread drug and alcohol use at its Laughlin, Nev., generating station, the Southern California Edison Co. organized its own raid. Corporate managers...