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$THE DAILY STANDARD, SIkeston, Mo. Fri. Apr. 28, 1978 - Page 2Poor Charlie SaysA Sikeston man is a regular church attendant. He attends regularly once a yearOddsare10that the F~lll plane will crashp.s. TO THE NEWS BY PHYLLIS SCHLAFLYWould you fly on an airplane if you knew there was one chance out of 10 that it wouldk.crash?Not many people would care to play those kind of odds Yet one out of 10 is the chance taken by our pilots who fly the F-lll plane. The 52nd crash out of some 500 F-llls that have been built occurred in April in England.The F-lll is the controversial plane originally called the Ti^X and sometimes referred to as the Flying Edsel When the contract was let by liefense Secretary Robert S. McNamara (former FordMotor Co president) in 1%3. it was the largest contract in the history of federal spendingAfter ei^t years of investigation. the Senate Government Operations Committee in December 1970issued a 93-page report called the ‘ TFX Contract Investigation” which spelled out the sordid story of waste and conflict of interest The report called the TFX a “fiscal blunder of the greatest magnitude.” laying the blame directly on McNamara and his civilian aidesThe record proves that therewas not a single soundtechnical reason for theMcNamara decision to awardthe F-lll contract to GeneralDvnamics instead of to Boe-*ing* which every expert had unanimously recommended Four separate service evaluation studies plus the Pentagon Source Selection Board has all concluded that the Boeing bid promised a superior plane at a lower price.But McNamara, on the basis of figures he allegedly *‘car-ried in his mind” and could not produce for General Accounting Office investigators, awarded the plane to GeneralDvnamics. The F-lll contract was nailed down at a White House conference at 4:30 p m. on Nov 13, 1963, attended only by President Kennedy, McNamara, and Deputy Defense Secretary Roswell GilpatricThe Senate committee report makes it clear what Gilpatric’s motive was Whilehe was deputy secretary ot defense, he was receiving $21,000 per year from his NewYork law firm, which was the general counsel for General Dvnamics at a retainer fee of$100,000 per year.With President Kennedy and Secretary McNamara, the political factors were undoubtedly more persuasive.The General Dynamics bid said that the F-lll would be built in Fort Worth, Tex., the home state of Vice President Lyndon Johnson (24 electoral votes), with the Navy version to be built in New York (45 electoral votes)The largest single stockholder and chairman of the executive committee of General Dynamics was Henry Crown of Chicago, one of the financial powers of theDemocratic Party in Illinois (then 27electoral votes).Boeing had the misfortune to be headquartered in Seattle, Wash, (only nine electoral votes), and would have built the plane in Wichita, Kan. (only eight electoral votes). There is a big political difference between 96 electoral votes and 17In a very close presidential election of I960, Washington and Kansas had voted for Richard Nixon, so they were not eligible for federal favors. Texas, Illinois and New York, however, had all voted for theKennedy-John son ticket.Texas and Illinois were carried by the narrowest of margins amid widespread charges of vote fraudsThe Senate hearings proved conclusively that the original Fill decision was a corrupt award to the high bidder for an inferior plane which could never meet its specifications. The Navy version was completely canceled in 1968, admitted bv everyone to be aw *total failure, inferior to the plane the Navy already had. the McDonnell Phantomcontinued, and crew i crew flew on to their dej Meanwhile, the Pent) civilians who made mistakes were rewardedpromotions RobMcNamara became presi of the World bank, a pow position he has held onto f yearsThe Air Force F-lll wasWhen the F-lll contracawarded in 1963, Hlt; Brown was director of de research and engineering Cyrus R Vance was seen of the Army. Today Bro' secretary of defense vance is secretarv of stat)
Newspaper Details
Sikeston Daily Standard
Sikeston, Missouri, US
Fri, Apr 28, 1978
Page 2
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USA 25 Jul 2018
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