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202

Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, Nov. 3, 1942.

^[[red dot and check mark]] I left no call for this morning and woke up about 8 AM after 4 hours sleep feeling very, very tired. My intellectual powers today were barely equal to making out my expense account. I did get in one good lick for G.E. - some ^[[BEW]] man called up Charlie and told him they had decided to refuse to issue an export license for GE's nine 40 ton electrics for Chilean Nitrate Sales Corp. because there are enough nitrates here now - or so he thought and it was folly to send these locomotives out of the country. I could picture the consternation at Erie when such a story arrived there with them in the midst of assembly of the units. I phoned the gentleman and explained these had been approved by BEW last spring, were 600 volt straight electric and meter gauge and would be practically worthless if not shipped. Whereupon with no argument whatever, he said, "all right, we'll grant the license." We had a session with W.W. Kelly of ODT to settle outstanding matters pertaining to November shipments and when the smoke cleared away poor Kelly got a total of two diesel-electrics for the railroads for November. Hap dropped in for a while looking like the wrath of God and admitting he felt that way after last night - Hap kibitzed on our game until about 3 AM, after making some unsuccessful efforts to locate a bootlegger after 2 AM when the liquor ran out - it was very fortunate he was unsuccessful. I called all the builders today except Porter to tell them about AA2X for forth quarter bottlenecks; I didn't call Porter because through a fluke, they ^[[were]] given 100% AA1! It seems to pay to be greedy, obstreperous, non-cooperative characters.

^[[red check mark over dot]] Marshall leaves tonight for a two week foray on the 57 locomotives for the near-east to expedite Alco, etc. rather a dirty assignment because he may get in wrong with his own company as a result of it. I had intended to