Having developed a certain gun shyness before such Congressional inquiries as the Nye inquisition and the air-mail investigation conducted by Senator Hugo Black, now Mr. Justice Black of the United States Supreme Court, we air craftsmen might have shied away from Senator Murray save for a bit of sage advice given me by Mr. Sam Rayburn, then Speaker of the House. When I called on him for counsel as to how we should proceed with our air-power program, the Speaker offered it as his opinion that we should avoid lobbying as we would a plague. All trade associations were suspect; they usually devoted their energies to the search for special advantage for their clients. And the munitions business was condemned out of hand. Besides, that was the wrong way under any circumstances. Congressmen, the Speaker assured me, were just average people, no wiser, no dumber than anyone else. But there was one thing a Congressman had to understand if he wanted to stay in politics, and that was the will of the people. He thought we had a good case for public approval in our air policy, and he advised following Jim Forrestal’s advice and taking it direct to them.
He thought one of the best ways to get our story to the public was to appear at the public hearings held by Congressional committees. These, according to the Speaker, were good sounding boards from which to beam your point of view. Besides, you might actually influence a committee if you had an especially strong case. But it was a mistake to send lawyers or staff members of an association to these hearings. The company presidents should appear themselves; they were more convincing, and Congressmen liked to look them over. They respected men who had won their spurs in competition, especially if they also knew how to stand up and speak their pieces.
“Don’t send a boy,” the Speaker concluded, “to do a man’s work.”
By the middle of 1944, with the outcome of the war no longer in doubt, men began worrying about postwar and the inevitable letdown of peace. Nation-wide unemployment was taken for granted, and what to do about it became a live political issue. The aircraft industry, now one of the largest industries in the history of the world and one wholly dependent upon an inflated demand for war materials, seemed headed for the biggest bust imaginable.
And while this was a problem of national interest, it had its focus in Southern California. Thousands of people had left their homes and jobs and migrated toward the setting sun there to do their several bits and incidentally enjoy the climate. Almost immediately, public officials sensitive to the reactions of the working class began proposing legislation to meet the problem; a ticket back home for the dispossessed worker and six months’ unemployment compensation were widely advocated. The fact that high wages had been paid them and that the thrifty could probably take care of themselves seemed to have been lost in the shuffle.
Looking back on this situation now, we can see how completely wrong the forecasts were. Most of those workers, having basked in the California sunshine, had already determined to settle there and could not have been driven out by an air raid. Their newly acquired mechanical skills would find ready employment in new industries. The war demand and the “total war” policy had drained all the pipe lines of consumer goods while the cold fear of the ’thirties had frozen the investment market and stopped the normal expansion of housing, plant construction, and so on. What the country really faced was a pent-up demand that would lead to a postwar boom, and a dearth of labor. The automotive industry, for instance, could expect to reconvert to a demand of unprecedented proportions; the aircraft industry, on the other hand, would face an overwhelming war surplus. The problem that faced the country was not that of unemployment; the real job was to keep alive a remnant of vital defense industry.
But this was not the problem before the War Contracts Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs and its chairman, Senator James E. Murray, of Montana. “Full employment” was the war cry of that era, and the C.I.O. echoed it through the halls of Congress. Full employment, it appeared, was the right of every citizen, and the government must guarantee it to him whether he wanted to work or not. Some industrialists applied similar thinking to their corporations; the idea of government-guaranteed corporate social security had prompted the creation of the NRA and the formulation of its monopolistic codes. Now labor unions on the one hand and trade associations on the other vied with each other in bringing pressure to bear on Congress to relieve them from the necessity for struggling to survive.
And so when Senator Murray extended us an invitation to appear at a hearing to be held on July 10, 1944, we decided to conform with the Speaker’s advice. The C.I.O. had tipped its hand in a circular distributed in advance, castigating aircraft manufacturers as profiteers who had averaged as high as 3,000 per cent on war contracts. Since we manufacturers were scheduled to make the first appearance and be followed by the C.I.O., it was a fair guess that we had been selected as whipping boys.
And so our association, using the air policy as its bible, prepared its case with a special slant at this matter of war profits. We divided our presentation into four parts, with a separate witness for each. I was to make the general introduction of the industry viewpoint, and submit our statement of air-power policy. J. C. Ward, president of Fairchild Aviation Corporation and a convincing witness, was to cover postwar national defense and the aircraft industry. Harry Woodhead, president of Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft Corporation, was to discuss the George-Murray bill, manpower demobilization, contract termination, disposal of war surplus, and reconversion. Joseph T. Geuting, chairman of the Personal Aircraft Council of the Chamber, was to discuss the role of personal aircraft in postwar readjustment.
When the hearing opened in one of the large committee rooms of the Senate Office Building, the place was crowded and the press table filled by Washington correspondents attracted by the C.I.O. handout. Senator Murray sat on the dais while the witnesses were called to testify from a table at his feet. This layout put the witness at something of a disadvantage and news photographers sometimes used it to get worm’s-eye shots of bigshots looking anything else but. I recalled one taken of a friend of mine in the Black investigation, and widely used by the press, in which my friend, who was really a good egg, looked like nothing so much as a praying mantis.
This inquiry, however, appeared friendly. It wasn’t important enough to warrant klieg lights or a radio hookup, but attracted the usual barrage of flash bulbs touched off at the instant best calculated to catch the witness with his mouth open or his guard down.
In my extemporaneous introduction, I pointed out to the Committee that we welcomed this inquiry and especially the Committee’s interest in postwar unemployment. We had taken the position early in the war that the government should permit us to earn enough money on war contracts so that we might discharge our responsibilities to employees terminated by the cessation of hostilities. We had had in mind that, by adjusting each case on its merits, and out of funds set aside from earnings for that purpose, the employer could handle the problem with fairness to the employee as well as to the public which, after all, was the customer in this case.
However, Congress had disapproved that procedure and, through the excess profits tax, the Price Adjustment Act, the cost inspection service, and all other controls, had so limited our earnings that we now had no funds available for the purpose. As a matter of fact, our companies had been so blown up by war demands that a sudden cessation of hostilities must inevitably wipe out all our resources before we could reduce our working forces in any orderly manner. In short, our problem was not one of war profits; it was rather a question of how to survive.
But while on the subject of profits, it might be noted that only recently the National City Bank of New York had printed in its Bulletin an analysis of profits as a percentage of sales of the several groups of industries doing war work. This report had shown that the aircraft industry ranked lowest of all industries, with a record of approximately 1½ per cent. The same table had revealed that the automotive industry, now busy manufacturing products designed and developed by the aircraft companies, had earned nearly twice as much. This fact had resulted from the automotive industry’s better tax base.
Meanwhile, I pointed out, my own company, United Aircraft, had from the beginning voluntarily stabilized its earnings at a figure based on the use of its own facilities and resources prior to the commencement of the United States aircraft production program. All these figures were, however, quite academic; they were simply estimated results of current operations based on an assumption that the war contracts might be terminated in an orderly manner. In the last war, no such thing had taken place; contracts had been closed out so brutally that, according to another National City Bank Bulletin, many companies had gone through the wringer and even the strongest, in the number of some sixty-six representative suppliers, had been forced to write down their apparent net worth by approximately one billion dollars, or 50 per cent. Our present “profit” was therefore but a temporary bookkeeping entry; no company could even guess where it would come out unless Congress proceeded with all speed to write new legislation that would facilitate orderly reconversion.
While I developed this testimony, our staff circulated a summary of the figures among the men and women at the press table, some of whom had, no doubt, read the C.I.O. pamphlet charging us with having made 3,000 per cent. C.I.O. figures showed gross profit before taxes as a percentage of net worth and, while accurate enough, manifestly emphasized what wide variations can result from the mere definition of the naughty word “profit.”
In continuing my testimony, I went on to point out that the aircraft industry, now the biggest industry, was a vital factor in our domestic economy and that the public interest as well as the worker’s interest demanded that we not upset the whole national picture through disorderly or even punitive procedure. By this we did not mean for a moment that our industry should be subsidized in any way; we hated subsidy because it tended to throttle technological progress. We had made rapid strides only because we had had rough going; in our struggle to exist at all we had been forced to conceive and create devices that would otherwise have never seen the light of day. What we asked of the government was that it make up its mind as to what it needed and then let us go back to cutting each other’s throats in that exciting way which had kept United States technology in the forefront of world progress.
At this remark, I noted a stir among the newsmen and women; long accustomed to hearing special pleaders demand special privilege, they were taken aback by the aircraft industry’s expressed preference for competition. Such unheard-of conduct was news of the “man-bites-dog” variety.
From this beachhead I went on to urge the appointment of a presidential advisory commission on aviation, one like the Morrow Board of 1925. After reviewing some of the background, I pointed out the rapid advances in technology since the day of that report, especially in the key element of air transport. This alone would seem to warrant a reappraisal of air policy, one based on the new concept that air power was not a military striking force but a trinity composed of air commerce, aircraft industry, and the armed service as well as all the other factors that went to make a country powerful in the air. All these factors were mutually interdependent and must be closely integrated if we were to employ our air power to keep the peace. The need for thinking through a new policy based on these ideas was obvious; it concerned government, labor, management—all the elements of the community.
In summing up, I pointed out again that our problem had never been a matter of profits but one of survival and that survival was our immediate concern. However, we were confident that, given an orderly reconversion and the necessary constructive air policy, air power could become the new reagent for keeping the peace of the world and better still, through the medium of improved transport, lead to the era of prosperity so vital to keeping the peace.
Following me, Harry Woodhead gave specific answers to eight questions propounded by the Committee and concerned with the industrial and human aspects of demobilization. Speaking in his clear, strong voice he made a convincing impression. Following Harry Woodhead, Joseph T. Geuting, Jr., submitted a comprehensive summary of things necessary to the orderly development of personal airplanes during the postwar adjustment period. Both Joe Geuting and Carl Ward, who now followed with his presentation, had been selected because of their knowledge of their subjects but even more important because both were good extemporaneous speakers and both had strong convictions as to the soundness of the industry policy. Carl Ward especially handled a complex subject with a knack rare in professional men; he reduced technical jargon to popular language.
At the close of the day, Senator Murray thanked us warmly for our constructive approach to the problem. During the sessions of the following days, Artemus L. Gates, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air, endorsed the industry stand. Robert P. Patterson, Undersecretary of War; Charles E. Wilson, executive vice-chairman of the War Production Board; and representatives of the U.A.W.-C.I.O. and I.A.M.-A.F. of L. made recommendations generally in accord with the suggestions of the industry representatives. The C.I.O. barrage on profits broke down against the record established by the industry, and Senator Murray himself later introduced a bill in Congress calling for the appointment of a new presidential advisory commission, like the Morrow Board. However, many critical months must pass before such a board would see the light of day.
Meanwhile, press comment on the hearing was favorable and David Lawrence dug the meat out of the cocoanut in an article in which he said that the aircraft industry had revealed its postwar plan to a startled Congressional committee. The industry, he said, had thought its problem through. And to the surprise of all, it had not asked for subsidy. It had asked only that the government make up its mind what it wanted and leave the rest to competition within the industry.
We drew encouragement from all these events. We knew that Senator Murray was close to the White House and that his introduction of the bill implied at least that the President was not unfavorably disposed to it. For prior to the hearing, Fred Rentschler and I had taken pains to cover this angle, by making a call on John W. Snyder. Mr. Snyder had recently come to Washington at President Truman’s request and was destined to do a statesmanlike job in many fields for the Truman administration. We found him well informed on the whole air-power problem and fully prepared to advise the President on the industry’s plans to bring the matter before the public. Early in the program we even hoped that the President might appoint the committee himself, even as President Coolidge had done, but now to our surprise we found active opposition in two quarters.
The Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Air, William A. M. Burden, developed no enthusiasm for the idea, and when Don Douglas, Bob Gross, and I called on him one day, he explained why. He felt that the existing legislation on the subject of air commerce was adequate and feared that a protracted public inquiry might hamper things already in the works and thus retard progress. But the big complication we faced came from the Army Air Forces.
The ancient Army-Navy rivalry had not died down under the impact of war but had flared anew and on many fronts. At heart it was the same old dogfight that had engaged Billy Mitchell and Billy Moffett twenty years earlier. The Army Air Force still battled for control of all military aviation, and the Navy scratched gravel to hang onto its own. Within the industry itself, whatever might be our private views, we took no position on the matter. After all it was a private grudge fight between two customers. We had hoped that the Air Force, now that it had won its battle for autonomy and demonstrated its decisive character, would welcome an opportunity to plead its case before a public tribunal. Instead, it resorted to the same tactics Billy Mitchell had used and thus confused the whole matter of air-power policy. The fact was that the Army Air Force, for all the miracles performed by the military air-transport services—managed as it was by personnel from the commercial air-transport lines—still remained blind to the significance of air transport.
In an effort to overcome this resistance we now asked the National Planning Association to study air power, hoping that this distinguished organization might support us with a recommendation for a national air policy board. For the National Planning Association, a private organization comprising men in all walks of life and of all shades of opinion had been organized to study just such problems as ours, namely those of vital import to national policy. Before a matter could be studied at all it must first be passed upon by a tough board of trustees who carefully screened out all subjects not included in its charter. Then after a problem had been accepted for study, it had to be debated by a selected panel in an open forum before which the burden of proof lay upon the proponents. The association finally accepted our request for study and numerous meetings were held under the supervision of competent moderators. Some of the labor representatives on the panel were especially keen, and since the industry’s position safeguarded the working man and the public as well as the industry, we found ourselves on the strongest possible grounds.
Our problem lay with some of the many government agencies on the panel, for aviation concerned a whole flock of such agencies, many of whom were naturally more concerned with protecting their vested interests than with advancing the art of aviation as a whole. Debates before the panel helped us to crystallize our own ideas and to adjust them to practical circumstances. When, for instance, the representative of the Director of the Bureau of the Budget questioned the soundness of our view as to the fundamental economics of air power, he started me off on an expedition the results of which startled even our research group.
Having in mind, from my youth in the Northwest, the story of the land-grant railroads, I had begun a search for a factual basis with which to support the air-power theme. I knew that, following the Civil War, the whole force of the United States government had been placed behind the expansion of the railroads as a means of opening up the great West, providing jobs for discharged war veterans, and developing a vast area of rich territory. To encourage this expansion the government had given some 180,000,000 acres of undeveloped land to certain roads and in return had passed legislation requiring the railroads to rebate to the government a percentage of the charge for hauling government freight and passengers. The balance sheet on this project, if one could be found, might prove interesting to the air-transport situation.
Inquiry among railroad operators disclosed no record of the transaction and little interest in it, but research in the government records produced the surprising information that the roads had repaid their debt to the government however one might figure the original land values. If the figure selected was $1.00 per acre, the estimate at the time of the gift, the roads, having at the time of inquiry rebated some $640,000,000, had paid the debt back threefold. If the figure selected was $3.00 per acre, a fair average of the selling price the roads had received for the land, then they had still broken even. In other words, the government had not subsidized the roads with this grant; it had made instead a profitable investment. A short while after this inquiry was made, Congress revoked the land-grant rebates.
Similar inquiry into the air-mail situation now revealed an even more startling figure. At the time of the inquiry, the airlines were still making money. Having lost half of their equipment to the military air-transport services, and having supplied a large part of the operating leadership, they had stepped up their utilization of equipment, and reduced their costs, to the point where they were earning satisfactory profits from mail and passengers without yet having exploited the possibilities of air cargo. Had they been “reasonably regulated” as required by law, they might have continued their record instead of running into serious losses as they have since done. But at the moment of the inquiry, the Post Office Department could make the proud boast that receipts by the government from the sale of air-mail stamps alone had already exceeded payments made to the operators for carrying the mails, even after a heavy loading of Post Office Department overhead. The United States government was not subsidizing the airlines with mail pay; it was taking a nice profit from that operation. Post Office subsidies were granted for several different classes of mail by palpably low rates but the special air-mail stamp carried its own freight.
And so, out of the need for justifying our theory of air power, we discovered the greatest possible justification of it, namely, its economic soundness. The Post Office Department, like all government departments subjected to the handicaps of political patronage, was notoriously uneconomical, yet the air-mail operation could support a large slice of this excessive overhead and still show the department a profit on the operation. The railroads argued that the hidden subsidy of government airports and airways nullified the arguments, yet there was a long history of similar government support for highways and waterways. Meanwhile the Post Office subsidized directly the carriage of periodicals, and took serious losses on rural delivery and other classes of service. Here was a fact of profound importance to our air-power program: air mail was already self-sustaining and if subsequently the situation changed, losses could not be charged to air mail as such, but must be credited directly to inept management; that is, government regulation.
This raised the whole question not alone of the reasonableness of the “reasonable regulation” but also of the principle itself. There is nothing in the history of the railroads to support the principle; cutthroat competition could hardly have been more disastrous than the present regulation. When, earlier, the railroads had found themselves face to face with the penalties of their own mistakes, they had sought to lean on government; they had asked for regulation and they had got it. Of course they had sacrificed their birthright for a mess of pottage because, having eased the economic pressure of the struggle to survive, they had removed the chief incentive to technological development.
This point was admitted by Fred Williamson, then president of the New York Central, when he and I discussed the matter on a salmon-fishing trip to Anticosti Island. It had started as a bantering argument at a time when the New York Central was giving consideration to a suggestion that the railroad start its own airline. After I had set forth the case for air transport, Fred Williamson looked off down the Jupiter River and remarked in all earnestness:
“You know, if the railroads had invested in engineering all the money they have spent seeking to gain legislative advantage over motor and air transport, we’d be in a far better competitive position today.”
This whole matter of “reasonable regulation,” so critical with respect to a healthy air-transport industry, the key to air power, was one we had hoped to have studied by our air policy board, but in that hope we were disappointed. The National Planning Association issued a fine report on air-power policy, but certain government agencies blocked its support of our recommendation for the appointment of a presidential aviation commission. Under the circumstances we were not surprised when the President withheld action.
Now since one of the most important questions to come before a new board must be that of the long-term programs of procurement for air-force naval and commercial needs, we suggested that a study of this should be inaugurated. Meanwhile, in order to bring the many government agencies now concerned with aviation into some semblance of accord, the President had appointed an informal group called the “Air Coordinating Committee,” an organization which included the Assistant Secretaries for Air of the War, Navy, and Commerce Departments. This committee now initiated a study by the Harvard School of Business Administration, to determine the absolute minimum of aircraft production of all types under which an aircraft industry might exist. Such an industry must, of course, keep in the forefront of world technological progress and be capable of rapid expansion in times of emergency. As the keystone of air commerce and air forces, the public interest seemed to require at least a minimum industry. The report, when finally issued, clearly indicated the vital need for a long-term, continuing program that would correlate all needs, public and private, and it specified the size of a minimum program in pounds of air frames to be built each year.
In order to remove any misunderstanding as to the character of our association we had earlier changed our name to the Aircraft Industries Association of America, and to help direct our public-opinion work, we employed skilled public relations counsel. From them we learned that one of the first steps in creating public opinion is to bring your case before writers and speakers everywhere whose comments and opinions command public respect. One method of accomplishing this is for industry speakers to address public gatherings, where writers and speakers are in attendance, and to bring a message that will command sufficient attention to warrant comment by the public press. Our air-policy program contained such a message and it now devolved upon me to carry the message to Garcia.
Time was, in this land of ours, when public speakers were few and far between; today they are many and underfoot. When any organization decides to hold an annual dinner, it must first recruit a speaker whose name may attract enough customers to help the dinner committee break even. And since the audience are themselves all public speakers, they will be less interested in what the speaker has to say, and more in how he says it; a new technique or a new story is of unusual interest. Having had no other training in public speaking than that which goes along with standing in front of a squad of bluejackets and selling them on hitting the target, my technique was informal, conversational, and flowing. I might have memorized and carefully prepared my extemporaneous address, but I tried not to reveal the fact. And when, after giving my air-power theme the particular twist that belonged with the particular audience, some of them came up to congratulate me, I soon discovered that few ever remembered the words, though some recalled the music. With this in mind, it is often more effective to slant the speech at the newsmen or the newsreaders; the listening audience is only waiting to get it over with anyway—even as you and I.
Meanwhile our several companies used their own resources to carry our story to their own localities where workers and businessmen were interested in the survival of the enterprise. Some of this, as Speaker Rayburn had foreseen, percolated back to Washington whether in the form of resolutions by various farm, labor, or business organizations, or just by letter or word of mouth. And so, with the hand of some government aviation agencies against us, we were encouraged by the reception given us by a group of senators and representatives who had come to dinner.
At an informal affair arranged to introduce our company presidents to some of the leaders in Congress on aeronautical matters, men who had previously known each other by name only, we divided our guests among small tables at each of which one of our presidents acted as host. Afterward, we called on our guests to speak to us and to our surprise found the burden of their discourse to be something like this: “You fellows have sold the public on air power, what do you think we ought to do about it?” In reply we pointed out that the whole problem was too complex for us; neither we nor anyone else could have the answers. We thought the matter deserved an airing before a public commission like the presidential advisory committee of twenty years ago.
Concrete action along these lines was forthcoming at the instigation of an able senator, Mr. Hugh B. Mitchell, from my native state of Washington. As chairman of a subcommittee of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, one that contained a number of outstanding men, the senator began conducting hearings on the subject. Our company presidents who appeared before this committee to present our case were much impressed by the fact that committee members attended the hearings and took an active interest in the problem. Before going back home to stand for reelection, Senator Mitchell introduced a bill calling for the appointment of a board to be constituted along the lines of the old Morrow Board. When the senator failed of reelection in the Republican year of 1947, a Democratic colleague, able Senator Brian MacMahon of my own state of Connecticut, reintroduced the Mitchell bill. Not to be outdone in courtesy, Republican Senator Brewster of Maine introduced the Brewster bill, one that differed from the MacMahon bill in that it provided for a purely Congressional committee.
From this point forward, matters dragged interminably. Most of us manufacturers, sold on our own doctrine, had now moved into the design and production of new transport aircraft intended to replace the war-weary war surplus. In United Aircraft, for instance, we had undertaken to expand the power output and increase the dependability of our current commercial engines and had at the same time inaugurated a wholly new engine, a twenty-eight-cylinder Wasp Major with a capacity of 4,360 cubic inches and an initial rating of 3,000 horsepower. This was over three times the cylinder displacement of the original Wasp but over seven times the power output, with possibilities of reaching ten times that output. It was expected to cost ten million dollars for development alone, or some ten times the original investment in Pratt and Whitney at the inception of the Wasp production.
Around these new models and the competitive engines under development by our rivals, Wright Aeronautical, the airplane manufacturers had gone overboard on new transports designed to carry increased loads at greatly reduced costs, and at much higher speed. All these companies appreciated the risks involved, but faith in the future of air transport justified to them the investment of their war earnings in the expansion of American air power. And this faith might have been justified had we been able to bring about the formulation of a dynamic national air policy, for the designs were sound in conception and well executed.
But now as time passed without concrete action, both air-transport and aircraft production drifted into severe difficulties. Save for a curious chain of circumstances, it is unlikely that the aircraft industry could have survived the long wait for an air policy board. Following the resignation of Charles E. Wilson, the great president of General Electric, from the War Production Board where he had been a bulwark of strength, and the subsequent departure of Donald Nelson, Julius Krug became chairman. By that time reconversion had become a live subject and a young lawyer on Cap Krug’s staff, Mort Wilner by name, had become much exercised over the threatened extinction of the aircraft industry. While, under existing law, cessation of hostilities would automatically cancel all aircraft-production contracts, a provision in Section 102 of the Reconversion Act authorized the President to continue such contracts as could be shown to be clearly in the public interest. At Mort Wilner’s suggestion I took John E. P. Morgan, able manager of the association, and called on Cap Krug to suggest that he obtain in advance a list from the War and Navy Departments of such contracts as could be shown to be in that category, and hold it in readiness against an emergency.
Thus it happened that when President Truman returned from Potsdam, Cap Krug gave John Snyder a letter for the President’s signature, which John Snyder carried to Norfolk with him. In this letter addressed to the Secretaries of War and Navy, the President directed that the specific contracts primarily connected with research and development be continued in effect. On this slender thread the aircraft industry subsisted until Congress could make appropriations for a temporary program.
Meanwhile with both the aircraft manufacturers and the transport operators hanging on the ropes, a fortunate break occurred. Maj. Gen. Oliver P. Echols, United States Air Force, returned from duty with the military government in Germany and asked for retirement. Oliver had been to the Air Force Matériel Command what Admiral Moffett had been to BUAERO. Having lacked any interest in personal publicity, his name was not widely known, but his achievements had long been recognized by all those in a position to appreciate them. In a way he was reminiscent of the old aviation story about Charlie Lawrance, designer of Lindbergh’s Wright Whirlwind engine. When asked why he had received so little recognition, Charlie is reported to have asked, “Whoever heard of Paul Revere’s horse?” Now Oliver Echols had the qualities required of the president of the Aircraft Industries Association. He had the respect of the industry, the Air Force, and the Navy; he knew aviation; he was familiar with the routine of Washington; he had the respect of legislators; he was in sympathy with the principles of the association; and finally, because he had zeal for air power, he was willing to accept the appointment, though tired by arduous service.
Meanwhile, in an effort to crystallize opinion as to air policy, I had published a book called Air Power for Peace, which was issued early in 1945. Patterned on Mahan’s method, this little book reviewed the history of aviation and appraised the impact of air power upon the war. And though history was still in the making and available only in censored headlines, the conclusions drawn in the book were later supported by the reports of the postwar Strategic Bombing Surveys. In light of the extravagant claims that had been made for aviation, it was necessary to keep the book wholly objective and, therefore, like Mahan, hard reading.
The outstanding conclusion drawn from this study was the important place air transport had held in the war. When the sea had been blockaded by enemy submarines, air transport had retained freedom of movement. With the Japanese in control of sea communications to China, air transport had hurdled the Himalayan Hump. With access by sea to Europe and Africa denied by German submarines, air transport, even though hastily improvised, had not only surmounted the barrier, but had become in fact the safest, cheapest, and often the only means of communication. Important persons and critical materials were delivered at critical points often just in time to exercise decisive influence on the outcome.
This fact was the result of the mobility of the airplane. On the ground, where movement can take place in but two dimensions and is often restricted by physical obstacles, blockade is relatively simple. At sea, where movement is still in two dimensions, obstructions are fewer and blockade is more difficult. In the air, where movement is three dimensional, and fixed obstructions few, effective blockade becomes almost impossible. And since freedom of communication is vital to security, the basic strategy in both war and peace is to guarantee freedom of communication to one’s self and to deny it to an enemy. This must be the beginning and end of foreign policy and the basis of strategy in both war and peace. The actual performance of air transport in World War II therefore becomes one of the most vital factors of modern times. By comparison, the atom bomb is a dangerous explosive; air transport is a new key to economic, social, and military security.
While writing Air Power for Peace, I had been impressed by the need for presenting this point of view in another manner. In the case of sea power, Mahan, the historian, had deduced the lessons of history. But Hakluyt, the author, had helped create the history that Mahan recorded three hundred years later. Born in England, somewhere around 1553, Hakluyt had been depressed by the backwardness of his people. While on a visit to the Temple, his uncle had shown him a map of the world and had given him “a lesson in geography,” which had inspired him to “prosecute that knowledge and kind of literature.” After studying languages so as to be able to read whatsoever printed or written discoveries and voyages he found extant in many lands, he made himself acquainted with the chiefest captains at sea, the greatest merchants, and the best mariners. Hearing other nations extolled for their discoveries and notable enterprises, and depressed by the sluggishness of the English and their neglect of the opportunities afforded them, he undertook to edit the original journals and narratives with a view to showing that in sea power lay the means for abolishing squalor and poverty in England. Today Richard Hakluyt’s The English Voyages is one of the English classics.
Having in mind the possibility of utilizing his method for the air-power story, I looked around for material. However, Americans seldom pause to record their observations, as did the explorers and merchants of the pre-Elizabethan era, and I was forced to fall back on my own experience. Fortunately, this had been varied and I had played in the backfield of a number of Bowl games. The air-power story might be told from my own point of view.
Decision to undertake this, plus a number of other circumstances, including a visit to a hospital, prompted me to resign from business. In order to approach the task objectively, I found it necessary to detach myself from active operations. Since we had long ago laid the groundwork for bringing a younger generation into the picture, nothing seemed to stand in the way.
With the passage of time, the situation in aviation became more critical. Then at the moment when both air transport and aircraft production showed staggering losses, we got an unexpected assist from the Bear That Walks Like A Man. When he began showing his claws, a great public clamor arose in the United States and was quickly heard by sensitive Washington ears. Whatever the politicians may have missed about air power, the American people knew the answer. On July 22, 1947, the United States Congress passed an act to provide for the establishment of a temporary Congressional Aviation Policy Board. Four days earlier, on the eighteenth of July, the President appointed his temporary Air Policy Commission. The Congressional Aviation Policy Board, under the chairmanship of Senator Owen Brewster, of Maine, was made up of senators and representatives. The President’s Air Policy Commission, under the chairmanship of Mr. Thomas K. Finletter, consisted of the chairman and four civilians. Now where we had asked for one investigation, we got two.