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.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Before the Bar of Public Opinion
The Finletter Board, convened by the President under date of July 18,
1947, held extensive hearings and on December 30, 1947, submitted its
report, “Survival in the Air Age.” Like the Morrow Board before it,
the Board comprised able and distinguished men, including besides
its chairman, Mr. Finletter, its vice-chairman, George P. Baker, and
members, Palmer Hoyt, John A. McCone, and Arthur D. Whiteside. Prior
to the Board’s being convened, a step of far-reaching importance
had been taken—the reorganization of the armed forces and the
establishment of the Department of Defense, under the able leadership
of James V. Forrestal.
Prior to this step, the Aircraft Industries Association had
inaugurated an annual conference of its board of governors held in
Williamsburg, Virginia, to provide a forum for the interchange of
ideas among the representatives of industry and those of government
and military services concerned with aeronautics, with a view to
acquainting industry and government with each other’s problems and
responsibilities and to aid in finding solutions to these problems.
At the first conference in 1946, it developed that the Army and Navy
had become concerned over their faulty public relations and wanted
advice and assistance.