Elliott Roosevelt Asked for Explanation of War Contract Recommendations

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26532, 6 August 1947, Page 5

Elliott Roosevelt Asked for Explanation of War Contract Recommendations

Rec. 9 p.m. WASHINGTON, Aug. 4. Elliott Roosevelt, son of the late President, took the witness stand to-day to explain to the Senate War Investigating Committee why he recommended the Air Corps to give a war-time aircraft contract to Howard Hughes, the millionaire aircraft manufacturer and film producer. Roosevelt’s appearance attracted the largest crowd of the hearings, which have been, proceeding for several weeks inquiring into war contracts, but the chief interest centred in the allegations against the Howard Hughes Company that Elliott Roosevelt had been lavishly entertained with a view to incurring favourable consideration of Hughes’s tenders for aircraft construction. Evidence was given last week that John Meyer, publicity agent for Hughes, spent more than 5000 dollars between 1943 and 1945 entertaining Elliott Roosevelt and his wife, Fay Emerson, at Hollywood and New York and giving expensive presents of handbags and nylon stockings to her. Roosevelt said he was not big enough or important enough in the overall procurement procedure to be an object of investigation, but added: “It happens that I had some rather intimate relationship with the man who then was commander-in-chief and who was in charge of the war effort.”

In particular, the committee wants to know why a huge cargo flying boat which Hughes undertook to build in two years under a war-time dontract still has not flown, five years later. The Hughes Company allegedly received many large sums, which are variously stated as 10, 20, and up to 40.000,0000 dollars, for aircraft not

yet received. Roosevelt declared that he never discussed the Howard Hughes photo-reconnaissance plane with his father..

Roosevelt said he had objected to the assignment to recommend a photo-reconnaissance plane because he believed his return from the fighting front would be used by political opponents to smear his father. Roosevelt also testified that he and other members of the Air Corps mission repaid John Meyer for hotel bills incurred in 1943. The Hughes Company was given a contract for 100 pnoto planes. This was afterwards cut to. two, and those were not completed in time for use in the war. Roosevelt admitted having accepted entertainment at Meyer’s expense, but said he did not know Meyer was giving vouchers to the Hughes Aircraft Company for every cocktail and meal consumed. 1 “ I paid my fair share of the tills,” he asserted. The committee's investigation was part of the “ smear campaign ” against the late President. ■ Senator Claude Pepper (Democrat, Florida!, a member of the committee, said Elliott and his wife received only a litPe more than 50,000 dollars of the 164,000 dollars’ worth of hospitality furnished by Hughes through Meyer.