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En route Schdy. to Erie
Friday, Dec. 1, 1939
Got up at 6:30 AM and found it about 20[degree symbol]] in Albany after spring in Washington. Caught the 7:20 local for Sch'dy. He invited me to have breakfast with him at the Mohawk Club and there we met Phil Hatch, Perry Egbert and Foley, all having breakfast together. Russia's ruthless invasion of Finland yesterday came in for a lot of discussion.

Started the day off with Thorpe after finding Waller not yet in.  I squared myself with him on the ACF telegram and as I left, he was rather provoked about the thing, although more at New York than at me. Thorpe warned me to work closely with them to avoid getting off into a morass on this work.  He introduced me to Clark, Paul Smith, Blaiklock, McIntire and Dailey who handle the Gov't work.  I inquired as to what measure of precaution one should take in discussing Gov't work outside and the admonition was, "Say as little to as few people as possible."  I began to worry about what I had told Sheahan yesterday regarding, particularly, the 5" naval gun mount job, as this should not be revealed to any foreign agency according to Clark. So I sent wires to Sheahan and Jay not to discuss with anyone, and then I felt better. I'll be lucky if I don't pull some good boner before I get my feet on the ground.  They finally put in a figure of just under $80,000 on the 8" rwy. gun mount job so I quess Whitney beat down the opposition, disgust or no. I am much happier with that figure than the $83,000 odd that St. L. insisted was okay and I, in my ignorance, had to agree to last Monday.  Bids open next Monday.