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strong, independent of any other nation on earth, that to the extent that we rely on other nations we will be weak, and that as long as that lag remains we have got to look to that.

Mr. PFEIFER. Do you favor the convoying of so-called "transfer ships" to a zone outside the natural, normal safety zone of 300 miles? General JOHNSON. I do not favor the convoy of American ships or the intrusion of American war vessels into war zones in violation of the Neutrality Act; but if we have a ship headed for Pago Pago, for example, and it is interrupted by piracy or by other interruption of our rights on the high seas, that is what the Navy is for.

Mr. PFEIFER. Is it not a fact that war zones may be anywhere and everywhere?

General JOHNSON. Under our law, they are where the President says they are.

Mr. PFIEFER. Well, even beyond that, outside of the 300-mile limit?

General JOHNSON. Well, unless we are going to get off the earthwe must not assume that there is some point where we must stop. Mr. PFIEFER. For instance, we did convoy a British ship beyond the 300-mile zone?

General JOHNSON. I did not say a British ship. We have no business convoying British ships. I said an American ship.

Mr. PFIEFER. That is what I was driving at. I did not quite understand, either, General. All right, that is all, General. Thank

you.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Chiperfield.

Mr. CHIPERFIELD. General, we have been told that while this bill gives the President the power to transfer our entire Navy to England, yet it would be ridiculous and preposterous to think he would do so, and in today's column, your column, you state:

The President says any suggestion that under the lease-lend bill he may transfer part of our Navy to another nation is a "cow-jumped-over-the-moon" form of question, meaning we presume nonsense or other palpable impossibility. Under those circumstances I am going to ask you to answer a question you asked in your column, which is as follows:

If there is no intention to transfer any part of our sorely needed armory, why is it necessary to grant unlimited powers to do so?

General JOHNSON. It isn't! That is the answer.

Mr. CHIPERFIELD. Is it not rather foolish for the Congress to vote vast powers to one man, if those powers would permit him to act in a ridiculous and preposterous manner?

General JOHNSON. Yes, I think that is what that column says, although I did not want to get into the position of defending my column.

Mr. CHIPERFIELD. If these wide and vast powers are not intended to be used and only limited powers used, why put them in this bill? General JOHNSON. I see no reason.

Mr. CHIPERFIELD. And then you would agree that the powers should be confined in this bill to what is intended to be used; isn't that right?

General JOHNSON. Yes.

Mr. CHIPERFIELD. Thank you very much.
The CHAIRMAN. Is that all?

Mr. CHIPERFIELD. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Very good. Mr. Jarman.

Mr. JARMAN. General, I have only just one or two clarifying questions-it is getting late. Were you surprised when France fell? General JOHNSON. No. I was not.

Mr. JARMAN. You were not surprised?
General JOHNSON. Not very much.

Mr. JARMAN. I think the American people were. But awhile ago, you gave Congress a great deal of credit-and far be it from me to detract from any credit you wish to give to Congress; we appreciate it. General JOHNSON. You need some friends.

Mr. JARMAN. Before I ask that question, though, the fall of France did not in your opinion put an entirely different view on the matter; did that change the situation greatly?

General JOHNSON. Very greatly. Of course, it changed it "cataclysmically." It changed it as much as it could be changed.

Mr. JARMAN. I agree with you on that. You referred a while ago to the fact that the President stated that he wished Congress to adjourn, and Congress remained in session and passed appropriation bill after appropriation bill. Do you recall when the President made that statement that he wished Congress to adjourn?

General JOHNSON. That was probably early in July. What he said was that he did not see any need of their staying here any more, that the budget for defense was in, or something like that; there was nothing to be "discomboomerated" about, that nothing could be accomplished by staying, except the laudable purpose of making speeches. Mr. JARMAN. You said it was probably early in July. Are you certain of that, General?

General JOHNSON. I cannot give you the exact date.

Mr. JARMAN. Do you know as a matter of fact whether he made that statement before France fell or not?

General JOHNSON. I cannot say specifically.

Mr. JARMAN. I am not sure, but my recollection is he made it before France fell, and that changed the picture entirely. But whether he did or not, of course you know he could have called us into extra session when France fell, if we had adjourned?

General JOHNSON. Yes-and we could have begun 3 years ago getting ready for this situation, too. Since my column has been drawn in here, just as a matter of interest will you bear with me while I read my first one?

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the General will be permitted to read his column.

General JOHNSON. This is the first one I wrote. It is dated May 15, 1935, and it says:

Hitler's mad move sets catastrophe on its way.

Hitler's flaming action is the most fateful news in years. It was inevitable. Up in the Teutonic corner of Europe has lived a fighting race that has been permanently licked by nobody since the first word of recorded history-"down" often, but "out" never.

Augustus, the greatest of the Caesars, sent Varus up there to do it. All he got out of it was the worst trimming ever handed a Roman general and a hairsbreadth escape from destruction of the empire. That ended the Roman attempt at subjugation.

Charlemagne tried it and decimated those early Heinies. They were on his back almost before he could turn around. Frederick the Great lost for them "all save honor," only to come back as the most threatening military force in Europe.

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Napoleon trounced them brilliantly and himself invented a limitation of armaments to keep them down. But out of Prussia came the idea of the "nation in arms, or universal conscription-a district product of Napoleon's own limitations on German arms. It drove Bonaparte to Elba and St. Helena. Sixty years later it almost destroyed France. A century later it endangered the whole

world.

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I am not approving it. I am only stating a plain record of 2,000 years of human experience. We ourselves helped to prove in blood and treasure that there are no supermen, German or otherwise but that did not change one of the most obvious facts in human history—that the Germans are a fighting people and that nothing will remove their threat of force save a threat of greater force.

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Just two things have kept the peace of Europe in the past few years-one was the British fleet and the other a potential 100 French divisions fully equipped. Modern war on land requires a big and efficient modern industry. The Germans have a much better one than the French. Today I think the French Army with its allies could march from one end of Europe to the other-but not after the Germans rearm with modern equipment. Fully equipped, they would be a military nation far superior to the French and on the slightest provocation, or no provocation at all, could bring down on the world a new 1914 or worse.

This mad move of Hitler's starts catastrophe on its way. From his barbarous persecution of the Jews and his ruthless murder of his political opponents, the world knows that he stops at nothing-ethics, mercy, or humanity-and he certainly would not be stopped at a political boundary by so slight a thing as the peace of the world.

If the past 21 years have not given us sense enough to keep out of that mess, there is no hope for western civilization. But there are some things we should do-and do them with the vim, vigor, and vivacity of a man whose house is threatened by a vast conflagration. We should immediately pass pending legislation to take the profit out of war and to provide for the mobilization of our wealth, property, and industry as well as of our manpower in any great threat to our peace.

We should get our State Department to work on whatever is necessary to make instantly clear exactly what are the rights and duties of absolute neutrality. If we have engagements or commitments, commercial or official, that can possibly get our feet caught in that rapidly closing bear trap, we ought to rid ourselves of them at once.

And consistently since that time and so often that I think people get awfully tired of it, I have called attention to the situation as it developed in France and what I think were the delays and the mistakes of England, and insisting that we should begin to get ready to confront this situation which now confronts us, and I think we have been very dilatory; and while there is no use crying over spilt milk I still think that the principle and policy of that column remains sound and that the thing for us to do is get ready to take care of ourselves, depending on no other nation.

The CHAIRMAN. Had you finished, Mr. Jarman?

Mr. JARMAN. I finished. I enjoyed it, though. Your column was to me very interesting, and I agree with most of what you say. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Vorys.

Mr. VORYS. General, is there any way in which this bill will aid our own production?

General JOHNSON. The question is there, anyway. Of course, it will aid our production, as British purchases have aided our production. If you mean the sum total of industrial production, it will increase it, of course.

Mr. VORYS. But is there any reason why our production should be aided by having our Government do all of the buying rather than

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having two governments doing the buying, but coordinated as they are attempting to coordinate them now?

General JOHNSON. That won't make very much difference if we take the kind of control of allied purchasing we had in the World War. Mr. Alec Legg was in control of all of it, and was their buyer. We used to purchase as one individual, and by avoiding competition we saved them hundreds of millions of dollars by keeping the prices down. Mr. VORYS. We have power under this bill, referred to in section 5, to simply forbid exports of something that is produced here. We do not want to.

General JOHNSON. That is right.

Mr. VORYS. So we already have power to enforce production the way we want it.

General JOHNSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. VORYS. I wondered if you know of any way in which this particular bill aids our production?

General JOHNSON. I am afraid I do not understand the question. Of course, any additional purchasing aids our production. Of course, we might be away off, but if you are talking about industrial production, that would do it.

Mr. VORYS. Secretary Stimson said that. I have been talking about how it would aid our production. That statement was made, and nobody has been able to explain it. But he said it would coordinate the purchasing, and that would be a help, and Secretary Stimson said that nothing would be produced that was not of a type and quantity that we could use, and we would then turn over the finished articles to Britain. Now, does that strike you as a practical way to aid Britain?

General JOHNSON. I think if the Secretary probably had taken more advice from technicians who had to do with wartime production he would not have made that statement. I mean by that this-that the British artillery is of a different caliber from ours. Their shells are different from what are used in our guns, and you could not change over without making a great confusion of sizes. Their airplanes are not the same as ours; as yet they certainly are not; and much of their equipment is not the same, and I do not believe there is interchangeability. We had exactly that problem in the World War. I think we have got it again. It creates great confusion both militarily and economically, and we get opposite standards, unavoidable if we supply munitions to both Great Britain and the United States. Mr. VORYS. In your opinion, have we replaced the deficit in our own defense up to date?

General JOHNSON. No, sir.

Mr. VORYS. In your opinion, can you have a surplus and a deficit in defense existing at the same time?

General JOHNSON. You can have a surplus of brickbats and a deficit of Garand rifles-sure, you can.

Mr. VORYS. Well, the only surplus you can have is while you have a deficit; while we haven't got enough stuff, the only surplus you have is obsolete things, isn't it?

General JOHNSON. Pretty much, but then you can't draw white and black lines on all this stuff. For example, during the World War I recall I set up in the various purchasing departments a pool of obsolete stuff that did not fit in our ordnance, and we didn't know what to do

with it, but when the Czechs started a march, 10,000 of them, across Siberia we furnished the equipment for that entire army out of our pool.

Mr. VORYS. To go back to this matter of stuff being obsolete, until you have got something better a thing is not obsolete, isn't that true? General JOHNSON. You are quite right.

Mr. VORYS. Now, in this bill there is a definition of "defense articles". A "defense article" is any article for defense. Now, can you think of anything that could not be included under that any commodity or article that could not be included, by Presidential discretion?

General JOHNSON. No, sir; I cannot.

Mr. VORYS. You understand that under this "lend-lose" bill, as my boy calls it, there is a revolving fund set up so that existing equipment can be transferred and payment for that can be used for a similar kind of equipment?

General JOHNSON. I so stated it as my understanding of the bill, in reply to an earlier question.

Mr. VORYS. Then if that is true, do you see any control of the power that is left to Congress under this bill?

General JOHNSON. Well, as to new equipment-yes, but as to many billions of dollars of existing equipment-no.

Mr. VORYS. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair wishes to state for the benefit of the press, who have asked me, there will be one witness after General Johnson-Dr. Brooks Emeny, of Cleveland-and tomorrow morning, Gen. George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, and Admiral Harold R. Stark of the Navy, Maj. Gen. George H. Brett, Assistant Chief of the Air Corps, and the Honorable William R. Castle, former assistant Secretary of State. That is for tomorrow morning. Mr. Arnold. Mr. ARNOLD. General, do you think the British Navy has safeguarded the welfare of the United States, in the past?

General JOHNSON. When it was to its best interest to do so, and sometimes, no. Since the Monroe Doctrine, the British have grabbed two pieces of territory in the Western Hemisphere, themselves.

Mr. ARNOLD. Do you think at this time it is of benefit to us?

General JOHNSON. I said when it was to their benefit, they have helped us greatly; other times, when they did not think so, no, they have not.

Mr. ARNOLD. Well, at this time?

General JOHNSON. And I will say this-I think George Washington said it in his Farewell Address, that there isn't any altruism among nations. Every nation has responsibility to its own people, and when you count on anybody but the strength of your own right arm you are leaning on a weak reed.

Mr. ARNOLD. One more question. If Britain should fall, do you think that we would eventually be drawn into war with our man power because of acts that the Axis Power might commit on the high seas, or economic warfare? Do you think we would be drawn in with our man power, as well as our other aid?

General JOHNSON. That is another one of those hypothetical questions projecting into the future. I do not know whether we would or not, but I am willing to concede this freely, that the likelihood that we would, would be increased.

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