“Why not stay for the council meeting?” he asked me, as we shook hands. “You’ll see a lot of old shipmates.”
“Thanks,” I replied, “I guess we’d better go home and digest what you’ve just told us.”
Back in Hartford, the four members of United’s war council gathered around the long table in the board room where Fred Rentschler had his office. On the walls hung the portraits of men who had helped make the company—men like Chance Vought, George Wheat, George Mead, and Don Brown.
After discussing the problem Jim Forrestal had put up to us, we agreed that this new responsibility would require rearrangement of our own topside organization. An effort to organize the aircraft industry for a public relations effort just didn’t fit in with the detailed administration of any single company. I would have to relinquish my job as chief executive.
And so I came face to face with the decision that I had known to be inevitable the moment Jim Forrestal put the finger on me. I had been in at the inception of Pratt and Whitney and United Aircraft. I had managed three of its four divisions and participated in vital decisions as to the other. I had helped hold it together in the trying days following the Black and Nye investigations, and had been its chief executive through the critical phases of the war expansion. Now that we were over the hump, I would have to give up my cherished title of president in order to try to help the company to survive.
As a matter of fact, we had long discussed the possibilities of a reorganization following the war. We well knew that the reconversion job would try the nervous and physical capacity of a man younger than any of us four seniors, and that our duty to the company demanded that we start bringing juniors along. We four would graduate into the category of elder statesman while my successor took over the reins. The logical man was Jack Horner, of Pratt and Whitney. Ray Walsh and I would fleet up to vice-chairmen and Jack in due course would become president. Meanwhile I would assume responsibility for “general-industry” matters and retain supervision of research. Jack would take over operations, and Fred would continue to exercise authority over the business affairs of the company. Ray Walsh, who had a unique capacity for handling policy, personnel, and legal matters, would continue on his course.
With these decisions reached, we began a discussion of the course to be followed in getting our story before the public. Had there been some independent aviation organization capable of doing the job, we should have looked to them, but under the circumstances, it seemed clear that we must depend upon our trade association, the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce, in Washington. The war production councils, then functioning effectively, would automatically disband upon cessation of hostilities; the Aeronautical Chamber must be rejuvenated.
Discussion of the course to be followed brought out a key suggestion by Raycroft Walsh. Ray had been in the Air Corps in Washington during the Moffett-Mitchell dogfight and had participated in the hearings before the Morrow Board. Having in mind the constructive influence of the Board, he now suggested that we campaign for a new public air policy commission.
Fred Rentschler rather pooh-poohed the suggestion but, when I supported it, finally agreed wholeheartedly. Here was a little indicator of how difficult it might prove to sell the idea to the company presidents; if Fred Rentschler needed selling, how about the others less profound in their mental processes than he? We now decided that I should make a swing around the circuit to appraise the states of mind and try to plant the idea before we committed ourselves irrevocably to changes in our own organization that our directors might not approve. On our board, aside from the principal officers of the company, we had enlisted the help of several distinguished “outside directors.” Joseph P. Ripley, president of the New York investment house of Harriman Ripley, had been active in the original incorporation of United Aircraft and Transport. Harry G. Stoddard, president of Wyman Gordon, had long served on our executive committee. Morgan B. Brainard, president of Aetna Life and Affiliated Companies, was a man of broad wisdom and wide business experience. Francis W. Cole, a prominent Hartford lawyer and later board chairman of the great Traveller’s Insurance Company, brought us mature counsel. Mr. Peter M. Fraser, later president of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, completed our coterie of able men. And if at times the technicalities of our business confused them somewhat, nonetheless, their unexcelled fundamental business knowledge was a priceless asset to the company. We outlined the plan to them but decided to defer final decision until I could check industry sentiment and determine if the Forrestal suggestion could command its support.
This check took me westward to Los Angeles, the center of the air-frame section of aircraft production. As our representative in that territory, Russell R. Vought, younger brother of Chance Vought, had long maintained an office in Beverly Hills. Russ had gone west while still a young man, and founded his own business in San Francisco. Then back in 1928, when we had equipped the Langley with the new Corsairs, and especially the single-float amphibians, he had agreed to represent Chance Vought Aircraft on the West Coast on a part-time basis. Now he made his home in Beverly Hills and had a bungalow in Palm Springs. Arrived in Beverly Hills, I called up John G. Lee, the manager of the West Coast War Production Council, and asked him over to the office with a view to getting his appraisal of the problem.