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• The fallout from the Bhopal tragedy forever changed Union Carbide. The corporation was soon the target of a hostile takeover, was forced to divest itself of many of its most profitable divisions, and never fully recovered its public image

• Union Carbide had no means of established communication with its plant in India. When the accident occurred they were reliant on a small number of phone lines in and out of Bhopal.

• Union Carbide had traditionally been reticent in dealing with the media

• the best strategy would be to distance Union Carbide' leadership in the U.S. from the events in Bhopal

• Union Carbide CEO, Warren Anderson felt it was important for him personally to go to Bhopal to demonstrate the commitment the company had to the rescue effort and to the investigation

• Warren Anderson rejected this advice

• Anderson traveled to India and was promptly arrested by Indian authorities upon arrival

• Corporate attorneys for Union Carbide were adamant that Anderson's presence in Bhopal would only serve to tighten the connection between Union Carbide and the Bhopal tragedy.

• Despite their best efforts, they lacked the manpower to respond to a crisis of this magnitude. Failure to have a Crisis Communication Response Team

• an accident

• transgression in that allegations of the plant's lax safety and maintenance standards directly contributed to the deadly chemical leak.

• Union Carbide's executives were, at first, divided between emphasizing avoidance strategies and attachment strategies in response to the Bhopal tragedy.

• Union Carbide's communication's staff clearly intended to adopt a strategy of publicly accepting moral (if not legal and financial) responsibility for the incident and focused the company's efforts on the human cost of the accident. This was widely perceived to be the correct strategy