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No one that I could see was chairman of this committee, but I thought that Johnson who, either by his own self-appointment, or by their tacit agreement, was gathering up the thing into himself. I felt that he thought himself as the center of it. I established that day, or tried to establish, a kind of a friendly feeling with him. I left the matter open, saying, “May I call you up, General Johnson? I'd like to talk with you. I see you know more about this than most people do.” I laid the basis with a little flattery, saying, “I can see that your great mind....” so forth and so on. I kept saying, “May I call you up about it?”, and, of course, he had to say, “Yes.” At any rate, I laid the basis for a future conversation with him, which I pursued.

I think I said to him in our next conversation, when I followed this up, that I had gotten into this through my interest in the promoting of a public works program. I was very much concerned about that, I told him. I started out by treating him absolutely honestly. I never hid anything. For a long time in Washington I never hid anything. I told everybody everything I had in mind. I only learned later that I would rob you of your braincells, if necessary. I said to him that I was concerned primarily with public works, that I thought it was an essential thing to have a