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(Seversky) convinced him further that he was right, that the United States' priorities for planes and the types of planes were wrong, that we had to build long-range planes of great speed. And Albert said that he would go to visit--I have here that in the spring of '43 we went to see Frank Knox, and it seems to me that it should have been in the spring of '42. Yes, there must be a typographical error in my book here. Albert said to Seversky that he would try to help him in any way he could. He talked to the NBC network and I think he got him considerable time on the air. He talked to Roy Howard and he gave him additional news coverage. And we did a large number of specific things.
In addition to that, Albert said he would go to see Frank Knox, who was a friend of his. In fact, Albert with Bill Donovan bid for Frank Knox's nomination for the Vice Presidency in 1936. And as a result of his having been nominated for Vice President, in order to make a non-partisan cabinet, Roosevelt had asked Knox to be the Secretary of the Navy.
We went to see Knox on the 16th of June, 1942, and we drove to his houseboat, the Sequoia, a shiny boat with plenty of sailors to salute, and set out down the Potomac for the night. We really didn't succeed in accomplishing anything for air power that particular day. Knox had no imagination in this area at all.
Was he indoctrinated with the Navy point of view?
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