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To All Active ALPA Members -14- January 26, 1948 to let it die in a Washington pigeonhole. Later, a similar bill was introduced by Congressman Cecil R. King, H.R. 3944. This will give you a quick picture of Hinshaw, whose Congressional district includes the Lockheed aircraft plant in California. Why does he fight the air line pilots and particularly their leadership? Can it be because the air line pilots take a strong stand for air safety which embarrasses and causes trouble for the airplane manufacturers in California? Hinshaw was a good friend of the late Congressman Jack Nichols, a wrong-sider respecting the air line pilots' recommendation, and, who, more than anyone else, was responsible for the deplorable airport situation in the Washington area. Nichols finally lost out in Congress and went to work for TWA. A small group, which included Congressman Nichols and Carl Hinshaw, during the 1st session of the 78th Congress in 1943, sought to establish a separate committee for aviation in the House of Representatives on Capitol Hill. The air line pilots felt, as did many others, that this move would not be in the best tnerests of air line transportation or civil aviation generally, or of the working people who made their living in the business; and they fought it. After a bitter, history-making battle that began on January 25, 1943 and ended on March 2, 1943, the move was killed. Its defeat was due almost completely to AlPA effort, and after it had made so much headway that the press was predicting 2 to 1 that it would be successful. Now, Hinshaw is making vicious personal attacks on the leadership of the Air Line Pilots Association. Why? It has all the earmarks of a vindictive move, motivated by resentment, because the Air Line Pilots Association thwarted his plans, and those of his associates, to do things that couldn't possibly have been in the best interest of the working people in the business, and air safety generally. The question is being asked over and over, if Hinshaw is sincere, why doesn't he bring out his bill, H.R. 1540, to re-create the independent Air Safety Board and push for its enactment? It has been reported that he was a short wave set and listens to the air line pilots in flight. Hinshaw, who is supposed to be a Representative of the people and not a character assassin, nor a self-appointed representative of the vested air line interests puts out letters that, in the opinion of many, are not written by Hinshaw, but are written for him. Certain not half-smart air carrier officials reproduce this trash and put it in the mailboxes of their pilots. What the pilots should do is send it all back to the company with the notation that they feel it's unethical and out of line. And that, if the air line pilots want to get on the mailing list of the ATA, they can write to its home office in Washington and ask to be placed there; and in the interim, the company might better assign its propaganda, written to do harm to its pilots, to its own wastebaskets. This entire subject deals purely with the matter of thinking things through and remembering that nobody throws spears at head lions. The success of AlPA in representing its members must be getting under somebody's skin or they wouldn't be out with their bows and poisonous arrows. 5. EXPLANATIONS IN BRIEF OF TWA AND AOA STRIKES There has been considerable talk among ALPA members in the field, some of which has come back to Headquarters, indicating there is still considerable misunderstanding on the cause, purpose, and effect of the TWA and AOA strikes. There has been a terrific flow of false propaganda on these two stikes through the "in-your-best-interest" professed friendship pipeline from certain air line officials, closely associated with the ATA, to certain air line pilots, some of whom, unfortunately, are victims of this kind of
