The secretary indicated some surprise and inquired what our price would be. When I replied that we would license them without fee, the secretary appeared to disbelieve the statement and remarked that he had never seen anything yet that was worth more than it cost. To this I replied that there was a catch to it, and now the secretary seemed ready to believe me. From here I went on to point out that the manufacture of an aircraft engine was an art that required skill, experience, and know-how; few organizations anywhere had been successful in this field. If we licensed someone to build our product, we must still accept responsibility for its performance—a responsibility that we had always accepted. And since we accepted the responsibility, then we must insist upon retaining authority over the choice of our licensees. We had thought this through long ago as a part of our war plan; a major war would stop production of many articles and throw men out of employment. It would break up organizations and teams that had the know-how of production and had demonstrated their competence in their own lines. We would train such organizations in the specialized technique of our business and thus get a good job. As examples we suggested such organizations as the Ford Motor Company, of Detroit, the Buick, Chevrolet, or Cadillac Divisions of General Motors, the Nash-Kelvinator Company, the Packard Company, Studebaker—in fact, you could go down the whole list and find a great untapped source of skilled production experts. I went on to contrast this with the possibility of government undertaking the job. Without mentioning the difficulties peculiar to government business, I stressed the responsibility that goes along with aircraft production. When the engines fail, the airplane cracks up and young men get killed. We had got many gray hairs carrying this responsibility. If the government wanted to take it off our shoulders, that was their privilege, but they should go into it with their eyes open. It was apparent by now that their eyes were fully open and we said good night with mutual expressions of esteem. Soon George J. Mead, once chief engineer of United Aircraft, then serving as vice-chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, had been appointed to supervise the Treasury Department’s functions in the 50,000 program. This was good news indeed. For aside from the fact that George Mead knew his airplanes, there was the further and more important consideration that George knew the Army and Navy each had skilled organizations, schooled in the procurement of aeronautical materials, and was likely, after the details of the still nebulous program had been determined, to give the highly technical procurement job back to the Armed Forces. For had fate left this problem in the hands of one of the political agencies then springing up all over the place, we might today be slaves of Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, and Joe Stalin.