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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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Albert saw Harry Hopkins and tried to urge Seversky's ideas on him and to urge the President to see him. Actually, the President, as you know, was profoundly Navy-minded and very influenced by Admiral Leahy, who had no idea about air power and thought of it only as an auxiliary of ships or of armies and he was very unsympathetic to the whole idea.

Q:

But knowing that he was advised by Admiral Leahy in this way, did you try to reach the Admiral?

Lasker:

Yes, but that was hopeless, considered hopeless. I had met Leahy only once and had no really good connections, and neither did my husband, and we considered he was hopeless to convince.

We also made every effort at the time of the first Quebec Conference to arrange to have a print of Disney's “Victory Through Air Power” shown at the Quebec Conference, and that actually was done and is said by Seversky and others to have had great influence on the British. The general reaction was that it had had a major impact in this area. Something very important was done as a result of this showing of the movie, but I would have to ask Seversky exactly what that was.

We also had other friends who were interested in air power, including a man called William Hoohey, who wrote, The Fight for Air Power, and we distributed his book widely. And a man called William Ziff, who wrote The Coming Battle of Germany, which was a brilliant book, and we distributed that to hundreds





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