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Erie, Pa,
Thursday, July 25, 1940.

This morning I called Cliff Clark and brought him up to date on our end of the 5"/38 proposition - then I told him about the hell Whitey's raising about correspondence with St.L. Cliff said he understood - they would try to do better. Cliff is a mighty good egg, I think. I have a hunch Whitey thinks Cliff is soft-soaping me but personally I don't believe it, and I am hopeful things will go better. Later on St. L phoned me to say Brehob had just called him from Washington to advise [[underlined]] the drawings were en route to Erie [[/underlined]] - this after Blair had told us the Navy had no intention of sending them! We were, according to the Navy, supposed to know just what the mounts are without any drawings, having bid on them all before - we wanted to sure there were no changes. Brehob had said also that Blair wouldn't allow them to visit the Navy Yard to look at DL's etc. because that is unethical when a schedule is out. I wondered what Blair thought they were going to do down there anyhow. Also the opening date is set back to August 7th. St.L said he had phoned Clark to tell him the story! I was dismayed to find he had broken the rules within a few hours of the time I had told Cliff we wanted to keep the job in the groove. So I went up and had a heart to heart with St.L. and I think I duly impressed him this time - I was nice about it but firm and made the point clear in no uncertain terms that he was to deal thru us on this work. So now I [[underlined]] hope [[/underlined]] things will go smoother.

I went down to see Delaney this morning and he gave me the "go ahead" signal - said my