Meanwhile, bureaucratic muddling had all but wrecked the airline transport industry when, in the summer of 1949, Senator Edwin C. Johnson of Colorado, chairman of the Senate Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, commenced hearings to inquire into its ills. Out of the welter of testimony before this committee—evidence replete with inconsistencies and strongly flavored by self-interest—someone familiar with the intimate history of aviation could crystallize his convictions as to what must be done to make American air power a force for peace. Believing that these convictions should be expressed, even though they might prove distasteful to some of the customers of the aircraft manufacturers, and desiring to avoid embarrassment to my former associates, I resigned the chairmanship of the board of governors of the Aircraft Industries Association and severed my last connection with the industry. Now, I should at least be able to view the whole subject of air power objectively. Out of the twisting and turning of our slipstream, air policy is revealed, not as so many believe, as a code book of detailed administrative procedures, but as a course of public conduct. It is no technical complexity of materials, money, management, or machines, but rather a simple expression of the spirit of men, one that can be stated in words of one syllable, “Air Power For Peace.” Contents PREFACE. vii CHAPTER ONE. It’s Anybody’s Fight 1 TWO. The Power Plant, the Heart of an Airplane 12 THREE. Its Vital Spark 19 FOUR. A Backward Art 28 FIVE. Toil and Trouble 38 SIX. What the Doctor Ordered 47 SEVEN. Calvin Coolidge’s Town Meeting 58 EIGHT. Dwight Morrow Advances the Throttle 71 NINE. The Gospel According to Aunt Lucy 82 TEN. The Take-off 93 ELEVEN. A Lone Eagle Sets the Standard 102 TWELVE. A Change in Status 109 THIRTEEN. A Salt’s Solution 115 FOURTEEN. Germ of a Big Idea 121 FIFTEEN. Creation of Strategic Concept 129 SIXTEEN. Maneuver for Position 135 SEVENTEEN. Frigate Birds 144 EIGHTEEN. Another Turning 149 NINETEEN. Necessity, the Mother of Creation 160 TWENTY. Igor Sikorsky Spans Two Gaps 172 TWENTY-ONE. The Courage of Conviction 185 TWENTY-TWO. Review of Some Fundamentals 196 TWENTY-THREE. A Yankee Peddler 204 TWENTY-FOUR. A Chill Sets In 213