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me this I had to make a real effort to keep myself perfectly calm, to keep my face just as deadpan as possible. I didn't want him to recognize any flicker of understanding or intelligence going through my mind on it. I didn't want to put ideas in his head either. He would be as unfaithful to Hillman and to the administration as anybody else if he felt like it, if the tables were turned some day. I really think Hillman didn't realize, didn't appreciate what public responsibility was.

Within twenty-four to forty-eight hours we heard from Ralph Bard, who was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He was a businessman from Chicago who had been brought into the Navy Department. He was competent. He certainly wasn't what you'd call a New Dealer. His heart didn't bleed for the labor or the poor or anything like that. But he was competent, and he proved to be very flexible. I got to like him very much because once he caught onto things, recognized that unions were unions and had some rights—and Knox was very strong about that—he was very practical.

He called me up and, I think, then he came over. “I'm very disturbed,” he said. “It comes up to us through our Department of Supply that this company, where they've been having a strike, says they've been promised a contract.