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155

Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, Oct. 6, 1942.

[[red dot and check mark]] Charlie and I took the whole G.E. schedule in to show Stevenson today and I told him very frankly that they had ordered material for locomotives not released for production but covered by PD25A under Production Requirements Plan. To my surprise he said he thought that practice was perfectly all right. He did say however that he felt they had erred in supplying Alco with so much electrical equipment for locomotives not released for production - that the burden was on the vendor in such cases and he should acquaint himself with the release status of the builder. It seems that Westinghouse has let Baldwin down terribly on their diesel program and are now hiding behind the claim that Baldwin was off first base with their production - actually most people feel the E. Pittsburgh boys are seizing this as a convenient alibi. Stevenson handed me a nice compliment by saying, "I really think you did a magnificent job of keeping your company straight on your locomotive business in the face of the information you received from WPB; I have never seen such a mess of unintelligible stuff in my life." He was referring to the Hanly era, of course. Stevenson also is willing to release the small builder for the second quarter of 1943 about November 1st. So I believe I'm making progress.

^[[see p159]]
[[red dot and check mark]] Had lunch with Jack Hogrett and Earl Heath today in the rather unhealthy atmosphere of the Ambassador coffee shop. Earl told me he is being sued for divorce and I'm not surprised; he is reaping the harvest of hell raising he has carried on pretty steadily I guess. And he has grown children. He plans to go and live in a cottage on  his 160 acre farm near Plymouth. In the meantime he is raising more hell and I presume with a clearer conscience now if he has any, which I doubt. He had two whiskey sours for lunch