With the Clippers behind us, we now had the choice of two courses: first, we could shut down Sikorsky and save further losses; or second, we could reorganize it and try to exploit the genius of Igor Sikorsky without prohibitive losses. There seemed no way to anticipate earning a profit in the near future; whatever we tried must be for the long pull. But one thing we had definitely determined: it was too much to expect our friends, the Russian refugees, to implement the American techniques of production. Not that they could not understand them, for they did understand and admire the extraordinary manifestation of applied science that went under that banner. The problem was rather one of temperament or national character. It was not until the middle of World War II that I heard this thought advanced by Charles A. Lindbergh, one of Mr. Sikorsky’s most devoted friends and an ardent admirer. The conversation took place much later, but before the war had involved this country. By that time I had become president of United Aircraft, and had persuaded Lindbergh to join our organization in the capacity of a personal advisor to me. The conversation took place in our home in Hartford, on one of the many stimulating evenings my wife and I were to enjoy with Lindbergh. He had been outlining those views on the European situation which had involved him in so much misunderstanding. Having been in Russia and Germany and, like his father before him, having ardently hoped for peace for his own country, he had feared that, in joining with Russia to defeat Hitler, we would bring about those very things which have since justified his concern. He thought that nations, like people, displayed traits of fundamental character that were distinct and unchanging. These had had hereditary origins and had been influenced by environment. They influenced the attitudes of nations toward specific circumstances and conditions and especially tended to determine the attitude of a nation toward war as an instrument of policy and to dictate the methods by which it prosecuted a war. The character of the Russians and that of the American people, he thought, differs as night differs from day. Theirs had been a tradition of compulsion, ours of cooperation. If in competition with them we tried to use their methods, we must prove quite as inept as would they in trying to use ours. But if we had the wit to exploit our own ideology to the limit, we must surely overcome the inferior authoritarian process. He saw the problem in its spiritual rather than material light.