Maker of Bayonet Labels Charges as ‘Sour Grapes’

Charles (Mickey) Finn, whose upstart manufacturing company snatched a $15.6-million Army bayonet contract from a firm that had been supplying bayonets to the Army for 40 years, said Saturday that complaints filed by the Rhode Island manufacturer against his company “are nothing more than sour grapes.”

Finn, president of Phrobis III Ltd., won the contract in October to manufacture 315,600 bayonets and an option to produce double that amount. He said his radically modified bayonet design won out over the conventional model that Imperial Knife Co., of Providence, R.I., had been supplying.

But Imperial filed a formal complaint with the federal General Accounting Office alleging that Finn and Phrobis III had used unfair tactics to win the contract, hiring a retired Army officer, Maj. David E. Baskett, to use his influence to show the Phrobis bayonet to soldiers at Fort Benning, Ga., before other manufacturers even knew that the Army was looking for a new combat knife.

Finn said Saturday that his company and his product are new to the field of mass production of military equipment, but he stressed that it was the excellence of his design that swayed the Army to award him the multimillion-dollar contract, not the influence of Baskett.

The Phrobis bayonet, called the M-9, is designed as a multipurpose tool that can be used as a combat weapon, a wire-cutter, a can opener or a saw capable of cutting ice, wood and even metal. It has an insulated handle to protect the user from electrical shock. Finn said he is in the process of obtaining a patent on the product, which he designed and plans to sell to the Army at $49.95 apiece.

Imperial, which bid $19.95 per bayonet but was one of the five unsuccessful bidders on the contract, aired charges against the Oceanside firm at a closed-door hearing with GAO officials in Washington on Thursday.

The firm claims that Baskett had violated a conflict-of-interest law that forbids retired government employees from representing private firms on matters in which they were involved while in government service. Baskett had been a weapons researcher at the Pentagon.

Finn defended Baskett, saying that the former officer had not been involved in the design or procurement of bayonets while in the Army and had not been employed by Phrobis when the Oceanside firm demonstrated its new M-9 design to soldiers at Fort Benning.

Baskett was one of five Americans indicted in July on charges of selling two airplanes, valued at nearly $60 million, to Libya, but Finn said the indictment had nothing to do with Baskett’s work with the bayonet contract. Baskett has been a personal friend for a number of years, Finn added.

Despite its fledgling status in the military contract field, Phrobis will meet its contract commitments and begin delivering the first of its M-9 bayonets to the Army in January, Finn said. At present, the Oceanside firm has a work force of 11, “but we plan to grow rapidly,” Finn said. Phrobis is contracting with Buck Knife Co. in El Cajon to produce the M-9 blades.