To men like Jim Forrestal who understood the principles of war, catch phrases like “strategic bombing” and “unification” aroused deep concern. The first phrase overemphasized that doubtful tactic of indiscriminate bombing of nonmilitary objectives, and obscured the decisive character of such real strategic bombing as the assault on the Ploesti oil fields which brought German transport to a clanking halt. The second phrase screened a dangerous drift toward such a national general staff as had cost Germany two wars. Earnest students, fearing a dominant Air Force, leaned toward the opposite idea that the Ground Forces, like the Navy, must control its own air arm. Civilians like myself hoped to see such fundamental questions of national policy resolved by an informed public opinion through an air policy commission, but such was not to be. What might have been a decisive moment in history proved but another victory for the Douhet doctrine. Even though Congress had supposedly integrated the armed forces by the time the Finletter Commission convened, the interservice feud raged worse than ever. The Board was unable to draw from Defense Secretary Forrestal any concrete program for aircraft procurement; the Chiefs of Staff had not been able to agree on one. Thus died the first objective of the manufacturing industry’s air-power program. However, when the Air Force took the stand before the Board, Stuart Symington, now its secretary, moved swiftly and decisively to the attack with a concrete recommendation for a “seventy group” air force. Out of his forceful presentation came ultimately appropriations by Congress which proved to be the salvation of the aircraft manufacturing industry. Congress, fully alive to the role of the aircraft industry in national security, was largely motivated by considerations of preservation of the establishment. The air-transport people, shoved into the background by superior showmanship, made a sorry presentation. It had fine leadership in Adm. Jerry Land, its president, and in two vice-presidents, Bob Ramspeck and Milton Arnold. But its membership was torn by dissension over that time-worn conflict, the “chosen instrument.” President Juan Trippe, whose creation of the great Pan American Airways system is one of the shining examples of inspired leadership in private enterprise, favored the policy of a single overseas American-flag airline, as the only means of competing with foreign, government-owned, or subsidized air lines. Other operators strongly opposed this concept as constituting a monopoly, and favored the system of “reasonable regulation” as practiced with domestic airlines.