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“Air Power Is Peace Power” The Aircraft Industry's Campaign for Public and Political Support, 1943–1949

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Karen Miller
Karen Miller
Affiliation:
KAREN MILLER is assistant professor of public relations in the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Commmunication at the University of Georgia.
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Abstract

An analysis of the aircraft industry's public relations campaign suggests that individuals' thoughts and feelings about airplanes and atomic weapons, domestic politics, and international events had greater influence on public opinion and political action than the PR program. However, the industry's public relations program did bring together many groups interested in air power. By linking these groups and capitalizing on the domestic and international situation, the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton of New York helped to create a climate in which air power was an acceptable solution to national defense and budgetary problems.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 70 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1996 , pp. 297 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1996

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References

1 Draft of President's Report, n.d., All-American Aviation, Inc. papers, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Del., box 5, Drafts of President's Report (1947); John E. P. Morgan to W. Stuart Symington, 13 June 1946, Papers of W. Stuart Symington, Harry S. Truman Library (hereafter HSTL), Independence, Mo., box 1, Correspondence.

2 Mingos, Howard, “Birth of an Industry,” in The History of the American Aircraft Industry, ed. Simonson, G.R. (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), 25–69.Google Scholar By the end of 1945, contracts worth $21 billion had been cancelled.

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6 A complete list of AIA members as of September 1947 is included in the President's Air Policy Commission papers (hereafter PAPC), HSTL, box 6, B7–1. The largest manufacturers in the immediate postwar era were: Beech, Bell, Boeing, Consolidated Vultee, Curtiss-Wright, Douglas, Fairchild Engine and Airplane, Grumman, Lockheed, Glenn L. Martin, McDonell, North American Aviation, Northrop, Republic, Ryan Aeronautical, and United Aircraft and Transport. Rae, John B., Climb to Greatness: The American Aircraft Industry, 1920–1960 (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), 190.Google Scholar

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12 Rae, Climb to Greatness, 196; Davis, Vincent, Postwar Defense Policy and the U.S. Navy, 1943–1946 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1966), 149Google Scholar; “A Program to Bring the Keller Report Before Congress and the Public,” 7 Aug. 1947, Hill papers, box 5; Hill to H.G. Smith, 26 April 1949, Hill papers, box 9. It is possible that the Shipbuilders postwar campaign was smaller because the Navy and the Navy League concentrated their efforts on opposing unification and naval aviation. Rappaport, Armin, The Navy League of the United States (Detroit, Mich., 1962), 186–95.Google Scholar

For unknown reasons, the Shipbuilders began to cut their public relations budget, temporarily suspending publication of the industry magazine, in August of 1947 and ended their association with H&K in mid-1949.

13 Rae, Climb to Greatness, 174; AIA 1956, 7.

14 “AIA Report of the President for 1945 and Program for 1946,” Boeing-Vertol papers, Hagley Museum and Library, box 30, AIA-1949.

15 “AIA Report of the President for 1945 and Program for 1946,” Boeing-Vertol papers, box 30, AIA-1949; “Proposed Revision of the Public Relations Program,” 26 July 1951, Boeing-Vertol papers, box 30, AIA-1951. Hooks, Gregory, Forging the Military-Industrial Complex: World War II's Battle of the Potomac (Urbana, Ill., 1991), 241–61Google Scholar; Mrozek, Donald J., “The Truman Administration and the Enlistment of the Aviation Industry in Postwar Defense,” Business History Review 48 (Spring 1974): 75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Lee, John C., “Public Relations in the Aircraft Industry,” Public Relations journal 2 (May 1946): 10–11Google Scholar; “AIA Report of the President for 1945 and Program for 1946,” Boeing-Vertol Division papers, box 30, AIA-1949.

17 Hill, Making of a PR Man, 102.

18 “Outline of Public Relations Activities,” May 1947, Hill papers, box 52, folder 10; “Proposed Public Relations Budget,” 18 Jan. 1949, Hill papers, box 62, folder 7.

19 Muelen, Jacob A. Vander, The Politics of Aircraft: Building an American Military Industry (Lawrence, Kans., 1991), 1, 5.Google Scholar

20 Telephone interview with Harold Burson (Burson-Marsteller), 29 March 1993.

Half the AIA budget went to PR in 1947, and about one-third in other years. “AIA Report of the President for 1945 and Program for 1946,” Boeing-Vertol Division papers, box 30, AIA-1949. “Memorandum for Mr. Symington” from Col. John B. Montgomery, 17 Aug. 1946, Symington papers, box 1, Correspondence. Hill to James P. Murray, 23 Nov. 1943, Hill papers, box 46, folder 3. An example: Helicopter Council secretary Don Mockler worked for H&K, not AIA.

21 Wilson, Eugene E., “The Moral Edge,” Air Affairs 3 (Winter 1950): 546.Google Scholar

22 The Air Coordinating Committee was created by Executive Order 9781 in March 1945. “Washington Outlook,” Business Week (26 July 1948), 6. Hill, John W., Corporate Public Regions: Arm of Modern Management (New York, 1958), 135.Google Scholar See also, “General Echols' Air Policy Program” in P.R. Memo 47–14, Activity Report for 18 Jan. to 17 Feb. 1947, Hill papers, box 43, folder 11.

23 The other members were: George P. Baker, vice chair, Palmer Hoyt, Henry Ford II, and Arthur D. Whiteside; Ford resigned early in the investigation and was replaced by John A. McCone. Finletter had served in the Army in World War I, and Baker on the Army's air staff during World War II. Hoyt was publisher of the Denver Post, while Whiteside was president of Dun and Bradstreet; McCone's company had been associated with the AAF during the war, but was more closely connected with oil refining, chemistry and shipbuilding than aviation. See Biographical Material in the papers of Horace E. Weihmiller, HSTL, box 6, Reports-APC.

24 President's Air Policy Commission, Survival in the Air Age (Washington, D.C., 1948), 7–8Google Scholar; “Statement of Thomas K. Finletter,” Weihmiller papers, box 6, Reports; Memorandum to Finletter (from McCone), n.d., PAPC, box 25, F2–3; PAPC, box 26, F4–1; and S. Paul Johnston to J. Edgar Hoover, 3 Nov. 1947, PAPC, box 26, F4–2; Rae, Climb to Greatness, 193.

25 See Symington to Gen. H. H. Arnold, 17 Nov. 1948, Symington papers, box 1, Correspondence; “Reminiscences of Stuart Symington,” (1981), HSTL, 35. Business Week claimed military leaders were “in all but open revolt” against Truman; “Washington Outlook,” Business Week (10 April 1948): 15. Watson, George M. Jr, The Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, 1947–1965 (Washington, D.C., 1993), 56, 58, 38–9.Google Scholar Memorandum to the Secretary of the Air Force, 13 May 1948, HSTL, Truman papers, President's Secretary's File 157, Air Force-Symington; Rae, Climb to Greatness, 194.

26 Congressional Air Policy Board members from the Senate: Albert Hawkes (N.J.), Homer Capehart (Ind.), Edwin Johnson (Col.), Ernest McFarland (Ariz.); from the House: Charles Wolverton (N.J.), Karl Stefan (Neb.), Alfred Bulwinkle (N.C.), Paul Kilday (Tex.). United States Senate, Congressional Aviation Policy Board, “National Aviation Policy,” Report 949, 80th Congress, 2d session (Washington, D.C., 1948), 4, 7.

27 P.R. Memo 48–10, Activity Report for 2 Dec. 1947 to 23 Jan. 1948, Hill papers, box 43, folder 11; Goss to Eugene Wilson, 23 Jan. 1948, Hill papers, box 54, folder 5.

28 Mention of preparation of remarks is made, for example, in P.R. Memo 47–44, Activity Report for 21 April to 28 May 1947, Hill papers, box 43, folder 11. Sam S. Tyndall to R. H. Sutherland, 24 Sept. 1947, Hill papers, box 44, folder 2. H&K news release on PAPC testimony, 28 Sept. 1947, PAPC, box 6, B7–1; “Report of the President,” Annual Report, 4 Dec. 1947, Hill papers, box 44, folder 6; Goss to Hal Davis, 21 Aug. 1947, Hill papers, box 44, folder 2.

29 Hill, Making of a PR Man, 103; Goss to Sen. Styles Bridges, 20 Sept. 1948, Hill papers, box 46, folder 12.

30 “Reminiscences of Eugene E. Wilson,” Naval History Project, COHC, 808–9.

31 “Special Public Relations Program for AIA” 20 Sept. 1946, Hill papers, box 52, folder 10.

32 P.R. Memo 48–10, Activity Report for 2 Dec. 1947 to 23 Jan. 1948, Hill papers, box 43, folder 11; Goss to Echols, 26 April 1949, box 46, folder 13; “Air Policy,” Tide 22 (12 March 1948): 58.

33 Goss to Doris Fleeson, 24 Feb. 1949, Hill papers, box 46, folder 13; P.R. Memo 47–44, Activity Report for April 21 to May 28, 1947, Hill papers, box 43, folder 11. The client files do not contain lists of press contacts until later, but a 1956 weekly summary indicated contact with 28 different reporters on stories regarding costs, effects of strikes on the industry, production rates, guided missiles, procurement, traffic control, Russian aircraft, and security policies; “Press Contacts—week of July 16–20, 1956,” Hill papers, box 43, folder 9. Echols to Chet Shaw, 3 July 1947, Hill papers, box 46, folder 3.

34 Samuel S. Tyndall to Hill, Goss and Mapes, 21 March 1947, Hill papers, box 53, folder 10.

35 P.R. Memo 47–103, Activity Report for 1 Sept. to 1 Dec. 1947, Hill papers, box 43, folder 11. H&K came in under budget.

36 “Outline of Public Relations Activities for the Fall and Winter,” 28 May 1947, Hill papers, box 52, folder 10; Goss to Hill, 12 Feb. 1947, Hill papers, box 44, folder 2.

37 “Outline of Public Relations Activities for the Fall and Winter,” 28 May 1947, Hill papers, box 52, folder 10; Echols to Harry Woodhead, 7 May 1947, Hill papers, box 46, folder 3; Echols to General Bonner Fellers, 5 Sept. 1947, Hill papers, box 46, folder 3. Goss to Fellers, 14 Jan. 1947, Hill papers, box 53, folder 13; Samuel S. Tyndall and R. H. Sutherland to Hill, 9 June 1947, Hill papers, box 46, folder 9.

38 “Report of the President,” AIA Annual Report, 4 Dec. 1947, Hill papers, box 44, folder 6; Goss to Sen. Hal Davis, 3 Feb. 1947, Hill papers, box 52, folder 9. See, for instance, AIA Aircraft Year Book for 1948 (Washington, D.C., 1948).Google Scholar P.R. Memo 47–103, Activity Report for 1 Sept. to 1 Dec. 1947, Hill papers, box 43, folder 11. Two AIA-sponsored books were Taylor, Frank J. and Wright, Lawton, Democracy's Air Arsenal (New York, 1947)Google Scholar and Hinton, Harold B., Air Victory: The Men and the Machines (New York, 1948).Google Scholar

39 Goss to Fellers, 14 Jan. 1947, Hill papers, box 53, folder 13; Bottoms, Bill, The VFW: An Illustrated History of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (Rockville, Md., 1991), 110.Google Scholar

40 Goss to Hill, 30 Oct. 1947, Hill papers, box 46, folder 10; Goss to Hill, n.d., Hill papers, box 44, folder 5; “How Potent is the Legion?” Aviation Week 47 (July 14, 1947): 7.

41 “Report on the American Legion-AIA Community Air Power Program,” 6 Jan. 1947, Hill papers, box 44, folder 5. “Current Activities of the American Legion Program,” 29 May 1947, Hill papers, box 43, folder 11; “The First Quarter's Results,” n.d., Hill papers, box 44, folder 5; “The Community Air Power Program,” n.d., Hill papers, box 44, folder 5.

42 Goss to William Wagner, 7 Jan. 1947, Hill papers, box 44, folder 1. See correspondence in Hill papers, box 1, folder 7.

43 “Report of the President,” AIA Annual Report, 4 Dec. 1947, Hill papers, box 44, folder 6. A letter of invitation and memorandum on the first meeting appear in the Symington papers: John E. P. Morgan to Symington, 13 June 1946, box 1, Correspondence; P.R. Release 47–34, Hill papers, box 52, folder 14.

44 J. B. M. to Symington, 5 Sept. 1947, Symington papers, box 1, Correspondence-Air Policy Commission; Goss to Col. C. J. Brown, Hill papers, box 44, folder 1.

45 “Dates,” P.R. Release 47–30 for 6 May to 16 June 1947, Hill papers, box 52, folder 14; “Weekly Washington Bulletin,” Hill papers, box 47, folder 6. Only two copies remain in the Hill collection, from 1945 and 1946, so it is not clear how long the agency continued to send them to the companies. P.R. Memos, Hill papers, boxes 49–51.

46 “Washington Information Directory,” Hill papers, box 54, folder 4; “Background Information on the President's Temporary Air Policy Commission and the Joint Congressional Policy Board,” Sept. 1947, Hill papers, box 44, folder 2.

47 P.R. Memo 47–103, Activity Report for 1 Sept. to 1 Dec. 1947, Hill papers, box 43, folder 11. See also, Goss to Hill, draft “Memo to Committee,” 30 Dec. 1946, box 46, folder 9. Goss to Leland Taylor, 26 Oct. 1948, Hill papers, box 46, folder 12.

48 Goss to Brig. Gen. W. D. Eckert, 21 June 49, Hill papers, box 46, folder 13; Goss to Charles Frazer, 15 Jan. 1948, Hill papers, box 46, folder 11; “Editorials on the Crisis in Air Power,” Hill papers, box 44, folder 2; Goss to Fellers, 14 Jan. 1947, Hill papers, box 53, folder 13; Louis E. Starr to VFW Comrades, 23 Jan. 1947, Hill papers, box 43, folder 11; Goss to Clyde Mathews, 14 Jan. 1947, Hill papers, box 53, folder 13. Along with Planes articles by senators, H&K reprinted copies of a Collier's series titled, “Will Russia Rule the Air?” P.R. Memo 47–23, Activity Report for 17 Feb. to 18 March 1947, Hill papers, box 43, folder 11.

49 P.R. Memo 48–10, Activity Report for 2 Dec. 1947 to 23 Jan. 1948, Hill papers, box 43, folder 11.

50 Symington to Finletter, 28 Oct. 1947, PAPC, box 18, C2–8; “The Betrayal of Air Power,” Aviation Week 48 (April 5, 1948): 50; (12 April 1948): 54; and (19 April 1948): 66; “Expansible Industry or Mothball Fleet?” Aviation Week 48 (3 May 1948): 50. For a thorough description of these events, see Bailey, Stephen K. and Samuel, Howard D., Congress at Work (New York, 1952), 357–81.Google Scholar

51 “Strengthening of Air Power Gets Big Vote in Survey,” for release 20–21 Feb. 1949, American Institute of Public Opinion papers, HSTL, box 1; David C. Lewis to Truman, 23 Aug. 1947, Harry S. Truman papers, HSTL, Official File 1639, 128.5-D, hereafter Truman OF. Dr. Bullard to Truman, 15 April 1948, Truman OF 1639, 1285-D.

52 AIA 1956, 7, 20, 30; Damon, Ralph S., “Airline Outlook,” Air Affairs 3 (Dec. 1950): 460.Google Scholar

53 Smith, Bruce L. R., The RAND Corporation: Case Study of a Nonprofit Advisory Corporation (Cambridge, Mass., 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rand Corporation, Rand 25th Anniversary Volume (Santa Monica, Calif., 1973), vGoogle Scholar; and Friedman, Saul, “The Rand Corporation and Our Policy Makers” Atlantic Monthly 212 (Sept. 1963): 61–8.Google Scholar

54 “The Aircraft Industry, 1903–1953,” AIA booklet, Hill papers, box 43, folder 8.

55 Kelly, Fred C., Miracle at Kitty Hawk (New York, 1951)Google Scholar; Corn, Joseph C., The Winged Gospel: America's Romance with Aviation, 1900–1953 (New York, 1983), vii.Google Scholar On fiction, see Goldstein, Laurence, The Flying Machine and Modern Literature (Bloomington, Ind., 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which analyzes stories about flying from Leonard da Vinci to the moonwalk.

56 AIA 1956, 61–2.

57 “AIA Report of the President for 1945 and Program for 1946,” Boeing-Vertol Division papers, box 30, AIA-1949; P.R. Memo 47–14, Activity Report for 18 Jan. to 17 Feb. 1947, Hill papers, box 43, folder 11. See copies of three speeches in Hill papers, box 53, folder 9.

58 Blueston, Barry, Jordan, Peter, and Sullivan, Mark, Aircraft Industry Dynamics: An Analysis of Competition, Capital, and Lahor (Boston, Mass., 1981), 27.Google Scholar Corridors were 20-mile wide air lanes protected by written agreement; the allies also responded with a counterblockade of the eastern zone. AIA, Aircraft Year Book for 1949 (Washington, D.C., 1949), 119Google Scholar; Yergin, Shattered Peace, 377, 387.

59 Sherry, Michael S., Preparing for the Next War: American Plans for Posttvar Defense, 1941–45 (New Haven, 1977), 207.Google ScholarDe Seversky, Alexander P., “The U.S. Air Force in Power Politics,” Air Affairs 2 (Winter 1949): 477Google Scholar; Millis, Walter, ed. The Porrestal Diaries (New York, 1951), 514Google Scholar; Kennett, Lee, A History of Strategic Bombing (New York, 1982), 182–83, 185.Google Scholar

60 Schilling, Warner R., “The Politics of National Defense: Fiscal 1950,” in ed. Schilling, Walter R., Hammond, Paul Y., and Snyder, Glenn H., Strategy, Politics and Defense Budgets (New York, 1962), 45Google Scholar; Robert A. Taft to Abe McGregor Goff, 17 Jan. 1948, Taft papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., box 893, Air Force-1948; Sherry, Preparing for the Next War, 224. See Gallup news releases on defense spending and the UMT for 11 Jan. and 27 Dec. 1946; 16 Feb., 23 March, 13 June 1947; 19 Jan. and 9 April 1948. Support for the UMT consistently ran at about seventy percent. Millis, The Porrestal Diaries, 426; Hartmann, Susan M., “President Truman and the 80th Congress” (Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri, 1966), 172.Google Scholar

61 Yergin, Shattered Peace, 358; Bilstein, Roger E., Flight in America, 1900–1983: From the Wrights to the Astronauts (Baltimore, Md., 1984), 185.Google Scholar News releases for 24 March 1948 and 4 July 1948, American Institute of Public Opinion papers, box 1. Monroe R. Brown to C. Hart Miller and Frank N. Piasecki, 24 Aug. 1951, Boeing-Vertol papers, box 30, AIA-1951.

62 Goss to Stowers, 19 Nov. 1947, Hill papers, box 53, folder 14; Goss to Stowers, 1 April 1948, Hill papers, box 46, folder 10; Tyndall to Hill, Goss and Mapes, 21 March 1947, box 53, folder 10.

63 “The Wildest Blue Yonder Yet,” Fortune 38 (March 1948): 95; see also, Baldwin, Hanson W., “What Air Power Can—and Cannot—Do,” New York Times Magazine (30 May 1948): 5–7+Google Scholar, and “Shall We Have Airplanes?” Fortune 37 (Jan. 1947): 77–81+. Wilson, COHC, 813; Yergin, Shattered Peace, 339–41; Baker, HSTL, 53; Eisenhower, Dwight D., “Liberty Is at Stake,” Vital Speeches of the Day 27 (17 Jan. 1961): 229.Google Scholar

64 Gaddis, John Lewis, The Long Peace: Inquiries Into the History of the Cold War (New York, 1987), 42Google Scholar; Tracy D. Mygatt to Truman, 12 May 1948, Truman OF 1639, 1285-D.

65 The AIA retained H&K well into the 1960s, but the client files describing their programs in the Hill papers end in the late 1950s.