Mr. Vinson interjected that Mr. Hinshaw had nevertheless accomplished his goal fairly.

Mr. Lewis asked whether it was not the fact that such lack of proper estimates of the cost of products had caused the renegotiation legislation still to be necessary, to which Mr. Vinson asserted that it was the case.

Having said that, he turns instead to baseball. He recounts that one day on his way to visit Secretary of State Hull, he spotted a sandlot game improvised by some Government workers near the White House. Enchanted with the inability of any of them to hit, while nevertheless able to take bases on balls because of a weak pitcher, he continued to watch the game, saw twelve men bat, ten of whom scored without a single hit among them.

His companion that day, Col. John Gottlieb, seeing his intense interest in the game, began a crusade then to get him appointed as commissioner of baseball.

He would receive $50,000 per year for the position, $40,000 more than his salary as a Senator. He had not yet begun to receive pay for the position, would not until he quit the Senate, which he states he did not intend to do until the end of his term in 1949. (He would, however, quit in November, 1945.)

Senator Chandler predicted a great era ahead in baseball for the men returning from overseas to enjoy once again. The owners of the clubs, he believed, would use some of their profits to help the young people who supported the game, to enable them to participate in competitive sports.

There had never been a report of a single crooked umpire in the game of baseball, he relates. He wanted to make the sport grow and keep it clean. He especially wanted to make it attractive to the returning veterans who had fought so hard for the country.

The pre-war traffic jam, absent during the war, had suddenly reappeared in Washington. "As in the 'good old days', you creep around Dupont Circle in a haze of gasoline fumes."

Cars were promised within a few months and radio advertisers were promoting the new products to come.

He then contrasts the fruits of victory in the U.S. with those in Britain, not so much in evidence. Clothing in America was, with few exceptions, not in shortage, had never been during the war; in Britain, clothes rationing had been reduced by a third since V-E Day and would so continue until the end of April, with insufficient points available under rationing to purchase even a men's suit, only the bare necessities, socks, shirts, and underwear.

Gasoline in America was no longer being rationed; in Britain, the ensuing three-month ration had been somewhat increased, from 120 miles per month to 150. Only 800,000 persons in Britain owned their own automobiles.

In America, sugar was short, as were butter and other fats, bacon, and pork products, but otherwise, food was plentiful. Beef would be in the markets in abundance by the fall. In Britain, the end of Lend-Lease had tightened rationing. Sugar, for example, was undergoing large cuts.

Generally, in America, controls were being removed, while in Britain, the Labor Party had proposed to maintain controls for five years, the result of Britain owing so much money for war debts.

Mr. Childs concludes that America was not likely to be able to develop an island of prosperity in a world of struggling economies. Apart from economic factors, jealousy between nations as to relative prosperity would likely rule the day.

Some might profoundly disagree.

As indicated, Ohio Senator Harold Burton, a Republican, would be appointed by President Truman to the vacancy.

It indicates that on October 16, 1941, both Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short, respectively in charge of the Navy and the Army in the Hawaiian Department, had been warned by Washington to prepare for an attack by the Japanese, and that on November 24, Admiral Kimmel had been warned of a possible attack against Guam or the Philippines.

On November 27, General Short was warned by General George C. Marshal, Army chief of staff, that the negotiations between Secretary of State Hull and the Japanese ambassador and special envoy would likely not be productive, that the result could be war. General Short was ordered to take precautions. The same day, Navy chief Admiral Harold Stark had warned Admiral Kimmel that war might come soon in the Pacific, probably aimed at the Philippines or the southeastern Asiatic mainland, meaning Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.

General Short reported to General Marshall on November 27 that he was on the alert for sabotage and was in communication with the Navy. He received no reply and assumed that his actions were therefore sufficient.

On December 3, Admiral Stark had again warned Admiral Kimmel that Japan was preparing for an attack on the southeastern Asiatic mainland, and Admiral Kimmel was informed during the following four days that the situation was growing increasingly worse.

On December 7, General Marshall had told General Short and Admiral Kimmel that diplomatic relations with Japan would likely be broken forthwith. That message was received by General Short only on the afternoon of December 7 and was received by the Navy only shortly prior to the attack.

It points out that Brig. General Billy Mitchell, chief of the Army Air Service in World War I, had crusaded after the war for a strong air force and had criticized the Army for inadequate preparation. He had been demoted to colonel and transferred to a remote Texas post. He again criticized the Army, calling the officers stupid and grossly negligent, after the dirigible Shenandoah had crashed in 1925, and, as a result, was court martialed. He was sentenced to forfeiture of rank duties, pay, and allowance for five years. He then resigned from the Army in 1926.

In 1935, a year before his death, he had counseled that air reconnaissance was the only means of warning against enemy attack in the Philippines and Hawaii, specifically mentioning Pearl Harbor.

Said Billy Mitchell, "If our warships there were to be found bottled up in a surprise attack from the air and our airplanes destroyed on the ground, nothing but a miracle would help us to hold our Far East possessions."

It is only fair, however, to bear in mind that, in December, 1941, the range capability of Japanese fighter planes required, for such an attack to occur, that a carrier task force cross 4,000 miles of ocean without detection and park somewhere, within about 300 miles of Hawaii. No one thought that possible at the time or that the Japanese High Command would be crazy and underhanded enough to risk virtually their entire Navy on such a single blow, risking being destroyed in the aftermath of the attack on their way back to Japan, to the port of Nagasaki, all while feigning through their diplomats negotiations for peace in Washington.

And so ended August, 1945, one of the most far-reaching months, for its long-term import to world history, in the history of the world.