SALE OF ARMAMENTS

Evening Star, Issue 21820, 8 September 1934, Page 13

SALE OF ARMAMENTS

STARTLING DISCLOSURES AMERICAN SENATE INQUIRY Press Association—By Telegraph Copyright . WASHINGTON, September 6. A boast by an official of the Electric Boat Company that he placed two members on the - powerful House of Representatives Rules Committee and engineered tlirdugh Congress a 3,000,OOOdol company claim, caused- uproar to-day at the Senate munitions investigation. Sterling J. Joyner, the firm s Washington representative, frankly took credit, in a letter written to Henry R. Carss. president of the Electric Boat Company in December. 1928, for election to the Rules Committee of Representatives E. W. Fort (New Jersey) and Joseph Martin (Massachusetts). Both are Republicans. Fort is out of Congress, but Martin is still a member of the House ■ and'.. Rules Committee. . In another letter, dated March-11, .1929,- Joyner said: “ All our legislative efforts have borne fruit. The cruiser Bill has been passed, the submarine appropriations have been passed, and, as I sincerely promised you -the day we lunched, together in New York, we did manage, after overcoming a number of handicaps and jumping some hurdles, to get the second deficiency Bill through j,and in doing bo we succeeded in getting our claims through.”

Details, of an intensive submarine sales campaign, involving ' Ligh ranking officers and Government officials, were , traced before the committee. Letters from officials of the United States-owned Electric Boat Company .disclosed that this concern had agreements not only with Vickers Ltd!, England, but with leading shipbuilding <cohcerns' throughout the world. • In rapid order the names of Russia, > France, Japan, Italy, Spain, ; Holland, Belgium, Germany, and Norway were spoken before the inquiring Senators as nations into which the Electric Boat , agreements extended. There were also documentary charges that German firms have established ' munitions concerns in Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, - and,, other small countries within . easy distance , of Germany for. the purpose of secretly maintaining Germany’s position as a. ■ »submarine power. It was also revealed that, Paul Koster,- a former Dutch naval captain and now • director of a German munitions'concern, had written to Vice-president' Lawrence Spear, of the Electric Boat Company, asking him to use his good " offices and aid him to obtain an American • sub-machine gun , for use by “ a certain organisation in Germany.” This occurred three months before the Nazi revolt. It was also submitted that a former . Assistant. Secretary, -.for. the Nqyy, Ernest Lee Johncke, while in the Hdover Caibinet, promised the Electric Boat Company a submarine contract, although its bid was higher than tho Navy Department’s. ' .