Hoosier Responsible?

Said Bayh, in the release: "The committee responsible for providing this protection does not have a good track record, as I saw myself when it allowed an Indiana company that made smart bomb magnets to be purchased by a foreign business. When it comes to protecting our national security interests, we should be doing more, not less."

But Bayh now glosses over the outrage he once expressed at the Clinton administration's approval of that 1995 sale, emphasizing instead the fact that there are currently no companies in the U.S. that manufacture Neo magnets.

Did Chinese Already Have the Know-How?

In 2000, also during Bill Clinton's presidency, Magnequench purchased from UGIMAG the factory in Valparaiso that manufactured the Neo magnets.

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President Clinton's administration took no steps to stop the purchases in 2000, either.

Around that time, Shingleton says, "there was talk about the national security issue and the loss of jobs because they were leaving. Some of the higher-wage jobs left immediately [in 2000]. I knew personally some people who were managers and who lost their jobs."

The Anderson plant was sold in 2001. The Valparaiso plant closed in 2003. In 2005, Magnequench merged with AMR Technologies, based in Canada, creating a new firm — Neo Material Technologies.

Do the Chinese now have "the intellectual property and technological know-how to make these magnets" as a result of the 2003 move, as Clinton claims?

"That's patently false," Albers says. "There was nothing new that the Chinese didn't already know about. They already had the equipment and the technology and the know-how."

The intellectual property, Albers says, "remains in the United States and was not transferred."

When the Clinton campaign called Albers two days before her Valparaiso event, he says, "They asked me to explain to the about Magnequench and the closing and did any technology go to China that would hurt the military … and I explained that that was not the case."

As for the jobs issue, Shingleton says she's "befuddled" because of the support for free trade and globalization seen in Bill Clinton's administration, which resulted in much larger job losses in the region.

"I just don't get it," says Shingleton. "NAFTA was passed under President Clinton, there's been a movement to open for free trade … Look at all the steel jobs that were lost in Northwest Indiana. If you want to look at the attrition of jobs, look at the steel industry. The question to ask her is what happened to all the other industries that shipped their jobs overseas before 2000?"

Legit Issue

Experts say that there is a legitimate issue Clinton raises regarding these Neo magnets. In the last several years, the producers and manufacturers of Neo magnets have left the U.S. The last one — Hitachi's Edmore, Mich., plant — closed in 2005.