SENATE INQUIRY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22404, 11 August 1947, Page 5

SENATE INQUIRY

PLANE CONTRACTS WITNESS DISAPPEARS CLASHES WITH HUGHES WASHINGTON, Aug. 8. The Senate War Investigation Subcommittee held another stormy session today. The chairman. Senator Homer Ferguson, expressed annoyance because John Meyer, the publicity agent for Howard Hughes, the aircraft maunfacturer was not present and could not be found. Senator Ferguson issued a new subpoena for Meye:. Senator Ferguson produced a letter from the White House files with a view of showing that Hughes sougi.t Presidential intervention in 1942 to persuade the Government to buy a bomber he was then developing. Noah Dietrich, vice-president of the Hughes Aircraft Tool Company, told the sub-committee that Major-General Oliver Echols, former chief of Air Force procurements, had declared he would never buy an aeroplane from Hughes because he did not like Hughes.

When Hughe; declined to say where Meyer was and refused to produce him, the' chairman, Senator Ferguson, shouted: "We are not going to argue with ycu," and than immediately issued a subpoena for the seizure of all Hughes private documents in his Washington hotel.

Hughes told Senator Ferguson that his committee investigators had ransacked his offices in California, Texas and Kansas City and, therefore, the committee should know that he made “no profit in any way ; shape or form” out of the flying-boat. On the contrary he had lost considerable money.

Mr. Hughes declared he was willing to produce "all the information you desire.”