While it was Mahan, the historian, who first revealed to the world the decisive influence of sea power upon history, it was Richard Hakluyt, author of _The English Voyages_, who inspired Englishmen to exploit sea power to their commercial advantage. By collecting the journals of the world’s leading merchants and the adventure narratives of its greatest navigators, and by editing them so as both to entertain his readers and stimulate them to seek their fortunes on the high seas, he influenced the course of history. There are no such journals and narratives of contemporary aviation. Although the whole record is comprised in the lifetimes of a single generation of still-active men so that no protracted research is needed to reveal the intimate background, much of it already tends to become dim, even in the minds of men who wrote the record. Unless it be set down now it may be forever lost, and that would be a pity, for the fantastic story holds lessons that apply equally well to other technological developments such as atomic energy. In undertaking to set forth the intimate narrative of events which, in the last quarter century, have helped shape the destiny of American aviation, I am impelled to proceed partly because of deep convictions and partly because my unusually varied experience gives me a somewhat broader point of view from which to judge the impact of events. While engaged on this task, I was disturbed to note that matters were going from bad to worse. In the summer of 1948, however, help came from an unexpected source. The Russians imposed their blockade on Berlin. The American public, aroused now to the need for preserving American air power, clamored for action. The Republican Congress voted a Congressional Aviation Policy Board; President Truman countered with his own Air Policy Commission. Before this latter organization, known as the “Finletter Board,” the aircraft manufacturers presented a well-prepared case. The airline transport operators, having suffered disastrous losses, were demoralized almost to the point where they were willing to accept a subsidy such as that long paid to the merchant marine. The Air Force, having earlier won its autonomy, made a vigorous plea for funds to provide a strong strategic air force. Under the circumstances, the Finletter Board, whose report was published under the title, “Survival in the Air Age,” naturally gave priority to the military aspects of aviation. The Congressional Aviation Policy Board supported a long list of recommendations made by the Finletter Board and recommended legislative action, little of which has been forthcoming. But military appropriations, easily the immediate answer to the air power problem, were passed largely because the public had been convinced that this country must maintain a technically superior aircraft-manufacturing establishment under private management. Thanks to these appropriations, the aircraft industry has survived the ordeal of reconversion.