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phoned him and said Caterpillar offered to build the transmission for $2500 each (in their opinion it was a cinch) but they couldn't find room in their shop right now. Our preliminary estimate of cost -$15000! So Becker wants to shut St.L. up for fear we spoil our face to the British. Whitey says we'll let Col. Earle come out Tuesday but wont tell him we aren't bidding on the transmission - the IGE can do that. In the meantime he can see our plant and toss off a few Scotches, which may help to get the gun mounts and the tank suspensions. I think if I had gone to N.Y. on this the first time I should have evinced little interest in the transmission and it is turning out I would have been right. It simply isn't "up our alley" at all. But St.L. doesn't balk at anything if he thinks there is any way of doing it whether the way appears commercially practical or not.

St.L. got a jolt on the 75mm. pack howitzers the other day. We are going to be late on shipment because of the delay in getting new machine tools which in turn is because time was wasted awarding the job to Iron Fireman and later to us when Iron Fireman gave up the job. St.L and Horn had a fantastic set-up with the Ordnance Dept. whereby Watervliet was to send them a very minor change and accept our statement we could make it but it would delay shipment - authorizing the delay and relieving us of liquidated damages. When the time came to carry this out (last week) the Army balked and we are wondering how the damages are going to be circumnavigated now as the other scheme was the only apparent solution at the time but seemed too fictionish to be true. 

Transcription Notes:
reviewed with a few corrections - nwmath