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THE MAN WHO SAID "NO!" TO JOE 

[[image - photograph, -Acme Photo]]
Warm welcomes, official and personal, marked the homecoming of General Lucius D. Clay, retiring military governor of Germany and the man who said "no" to Uncle Joe and meant it. At Washington National Airport Lt. Colonel Lucius D. Clay, Jr., hugs his  mother, while his wife is kissed by the General. Looking on (l. to r.) are: daughter-in-law Mrs. Frank Clay; Admiral Louis Denfield, Chief on Naval Operations; General Hoyt Vandenburg, Chief of the U.S. Air Force; Mrs. Evelyn Clay Everett, sister of the General; and Defense Secretary Louis Johnson. 

passing between Washington and regional offices, and characterized the CAB handling of the National strike as "strictly a botched job." ALPA's President condemned the "objective regulation" air line super regulating scheme from top to bottom. 

Legal Fees Cited-Exhorbitant [[Exorbitant]] legal costs were also attacked. "The cost of the legal services to the air lines should be established for the information of the taxpayers and legislators," Mr. Behncke said adding that "the legal fees for 17 scheduled air lines during 1948 amounted to $1,55,239" and that "the CAB has grown to become a Utopia for expensive lawyers." He requested the Committee to investigate the high turnover in CAB personnel who "usually end up with some air line." 

Of technological unemployment, Mr. Behncke said: "We have less units of equipment, less frequency of service, and less desirable service to the public. Our all-valuable, highly trained corps of air line pilots has been cut alarmingly. Only a short time ago, one company, American Airlines, employed around 1,200 pilots, and now that figure has dropped to something between 700 and 800. This is serious from a national defense view-point."

Independent Air Safety Board-Although he covered all phrases of aviation, the need for air safety in order to attain financial stability on the air lines was entwined throughout Mr. Behncke's entire testimony.

Mr. Behncke furnished for the record a list of near fatal accidents, fatal accidents and ALPA's 68 recommendations for modification of the DC-6 made following the Bryce Canyon accident, showing the Committee pictures of the destroyed planes taken at the scenes of the mishaps. He pointed to the "startling failure" of the CAA, CAB and the air lines to follow the recommendations of the Bryce Canyon ALPA accident investigators, charges that this was the direct cause of the repeat UAL Mt. Carmel accident, and pointed to such occurrences as one of the primary reasons for reestablishment of the Independent Air Safety Board. He went on to say only a small number of the ALPA air safety recommendations made to the CAB by the air line pilots-the men in the cockpits-were followed. 

Mr. Behncke's appearance was well received and elicited considerable interest. "You have approached these problems with your gloves off and that is the kind of testimony that this Committee wants to get," Senator Edwin C. Johnson (D., Colo.), Chairman of the Committee, told Mr. Behncke at the conclusion of the hearing. 

H.R. 780 Opposed-As a result of the pointing out to the legislators to the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee exactly what H.R. 780 stood for and how it had been misrepresented in being presented to them, what is probably one of the most vicious bits of the power-grasping legislation the air line industry has yet attempted to promulgate on Capitol Hill appears to have been nipped in the bud. 

In his statement against the Bill and in a letter to the Committee Chieftain, Mr. Behncke pointed out: "The bill contravenes the clear intent of Congress in passing the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938; and (2) The Bill contains provisions and contemplates conditions that are adverse to the public interest." 

"We," he declared in speaking for the air line pilots, "are desirous of promoting efficiency and uniformity in the regulation of Civil Aeronautics in the interest of creating the highest possible degree of air safety and we are opposed to H. R. 780 because, among other things, that Bill threaten to legalize an increased evasion of responsibility in a governmental agency that would invite buck passing and evasions of every character."

Mr. Behncke charged that the legislation would "decentralize authority, reduce regulatory efficiency, and play havoc with safety." Because if would endow private individuals connected with air carrier companies regulated by the Act with powers equivalent to those of the Administrator (including those exercised over pilots), he contended that "the procedures contemplated by this Bill are opposed to certain principles and concepts of American government and are therefore in derogation of the public interest."

CAB Docket 3589--At his appearance before CAB Examiner Wrenn in Washington on June 13 relative to Docket 3589 (the PAA-AOA merger), Mr. Behncke placed into the record a five-stage statement dealing with the best interests of all pilot groups involved.

"The Air Line Pilots Association," he declared, "has not taken a position as being either for or against this merger;


A QUESTION RAISED
[[image - photograph]] 
CAB'S O'CONNELL 

He Smells Something Fishy  

In the present chaotic state of things in the air line picture nothing would be surprising; not even the suspicious of CAB Chairman Joseph J. O'Connell, Jr. that the U.S. is financing in a roundabout manner foreign air lines which compete with U.S. Carriers. He is shown here as he told the Senate Commerce Committee that he plans to take up with ECA Administrator Paul Hoffman the possibility that such a situation exists.

PAGE 4      THE AIR LINE PILOT