Word: zandt
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...statement dark with implications, Van Zandt demanded a full-scale investigation of "the unusually large purchases of aircraft [by the Air Force] from Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp., controlled by Floyd Odium, a contributor to the Democratic campaign, and a company of which Louis Johnson was, until three days after his nomination as Secretary of Defense, a director and Washington counsel...
...Then Van Zandt sighted squarely in on the long-cigar-shaped silhouette of Con-solidated's six-engined B-36, backbone of the Air Force's strategic bombing force. Since Louis Johnson sank the Navy's supercarrier six weeks ago (TIME, May 2), and with it the Navy's hopes for a piece of the Air Force's long-range bombing mission, the Navy has stepped up its attacks on the ability of the B-36 to carry out its mission. Armed with a secret and rambling, anonymous memo which had been prepared...
...Accused. Essentially Van Zandt's accusations centered on the personal motives of three...
...Secretary W. Stuart Symington, under whose regime the B-36 had been developed (by better power plants, etc.) from a slow but long-range aircraft into the fastest, longest-ranged, high-altitude bomber the air arm has ever owned. Van Zandt implied that there was some kind of skulduggery behind the Air Force's decision to concentrate on the B-36. He also implied that there was a plot afoot by Consolidated to absorb its unsuccessful competitors (for airplane contracts) and that, after that, Symington would resign to become boss of the great combine. Symington ridiculed the charge. Said...
Strange Assumptions. What did it all add up to? On the face of the memo furnished to Van Zandt, the charges, strewn with rumor and hearsay, and preceded by such hedges as "It is said," stated more suspicions than solid facts. If they were to be believed, the Air Force, first line of the nation's defense, was in a sorry state: its professional officers (who decide what aircraft to buy) were guilty of either corruption or of the vastest stupidity. By Congressman Van Zandt's implications they were ready to risk the nation's security...