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Frank StantonFrank Stanton
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with the Air Force, although we did do work on special projects for the Navy and for the Army. But we were an Air Force resource and funded almost exclusively by the Air Force for many years. But I wanted a little extra in our funding that we could put into an account that would be something like an endowment. It wasn't an endowment but it was a fund that we had in case we wanted to do something that the Air Force wasn't interested in having us do.

Now, at the time I was chairman, not because of anything I did but the procedures had evolved to the point where if RAND came up with the idea for a study, it was generally discussed with the Air Force so they knew what we were spending their money for. And I don't recall that there was anything we proposed that they said we couldn't do. But I think there were some things they wanted us to do that we weren't so interested in. And we knew there were some things that we wanted to do -- might want to do -- that we'd like to do without clearing it necessarily with the Air Force.

(END OF SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE; BEGINNING OF SIDE ONE, TAPE TWO)

Q:

Okay.

Stanton:

So, what I was getting ready to say was, one of the things that I did as chairman was to plead with the powers that be in the Pentagon to get a little extra funding when we did a job so that we could accumulate some money in case we wanted to do something, or in case, God forbid, we did something that offended the Congress or the Air Force and our funding was cut off. I always believed that we should have enough money in the bank to run the organization for a solid year without funding from government. It's inevitable, when you get a group of very bright people together, that somebody's going to do something that's going to offend the military, or for that matter, any part of the government. And while I hoped that we would be able to persuade the contracting officers that we shouldn't be cut off, I was afraid that maybe we'd be cut off, and I was cocky enough to think that if we were cut off we would be reinstated. But I wanted something to bridge the period when we might be in some difficulty.

Harold Brown was Secretary of the Air Force at the time and I don't think he wanted --

[TAPE INTERRUPTION]

Stanton:

-- he shared the comfort of having that kind of a funding. I suspect today -- I don't





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