The Politics of Aircraft: Building an American Military Industry by Jacob A. Vander Meulen, and: Airshipmen, Businessmen, and Politics, 1890–1940 by Henry Cord Meyer

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 443 The Politics of Aircraft: Building an American Military Industry. By Jacob A. Vander Meulen. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991. Pp. xii + 292; illustrations, tables, notes, appendixes, bibliog­ raphy, index. $35.00. Airshipmen, Businessmen, and Politics, 1890—1940. By Henry Cord Meyer. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. Pp. 273; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $45.00. Although these books by Jacob Vander Meulen and Henry Cord Meyer are different in their content and scope, both offer consider­ able insight into the broader historical significance of aeronautical technology. The Politics of Aircraft focuses on the American aircraft industry, stressing that the airplane was as much a political as a technological entity. The book stresses the dichotomy between the “corporatist” or “associationalist” movement in the aircraft industry and the govern­ ment’s insistence that the industry had to be treated as if it functioned within a 19th-century free-market economy. Vander Meulen’s argu­ ment is simplistic but convincing, and it results in a more concise and analytical treatment of the aircraft procurement and contracting tangle than I. B. Holley’s encyclopedic but still valuable 1964 Buying Aircraft: Materiel Procurementfor the Army Air Forces. The principal weapon used by the federal government in what amounted to prolonged ideological and economic warfare with the industry was nonrecognition of proprietary design rights. Congress refused to budge on its insistence that in all contracts with aircraft manufacturers the government retained the rights to the design, thus remaining in a position to distribute lucrative production orders to competitors. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, manufacturers in­ sisted that they functioned within a closed market, with the govern­ ment as their only customer, and that the monopolization of design rights by the government gave unfair advantages to certain compet­ itors who had not invested the time and money in the development of an aircraft design. While this policy worked to the advantage of some manufacturers (and presumably saved the taxpayer money), in the long run it impoverished the entire industry. Unfortunately for the industry representatives, there was little they could do to rectify the situation. The highly specialized nature of the product and the low volume of output dictated the industry’s organization—or lack thereof. Repeated efforts to form trade associ­ ations failed, largely because manufacturers tended to be independent-minded, highly individualistic, and, ironically, wedded to some of the same democratic ideals touted by their opponents on Capitol Hill. The manufacturers stayed in the business for irrational, noneconomic reasons, basking in the glamour and prestige of a high-technology industry while consistently losing money or making 444 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE only the slimmest of profits. The only effort to resolve this anomalous situation was the Air Corps Act of 1926, but most interpreted its confusing verbiage as mandating open advertising and bidding on all contracts and no compromise on the question of design rights. Vander Meulen’s foray into the political culture of the aircraft industry is successful. His research is impressive, particularly the time and effort spent in the collections of the National Archives and the largely untapped records of the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce. There are a handful of factual errors in the book, and Vander Meulen’s consistent misspelling of Charles Lawrance’s last name is annoying, but these shortcomings do not detract from a fine work. Meyer’s book, on the other hand, is more uneven. Although he starts from much the same premise, that the political history of the airship is as important as the technology, Airshipmen, Businessmen, and Politics lacks the clarity of argument and depth of analysis evident in Vander Meulen’s study. The major reason for this is that Meyer has combined ten essays on the rigid airship written over a number of years, giving the book a disjointed feel. Moreover, the field ranges widely, covering the origins of the industry in Germany, the competition between the Zeppelin company and the Schutte-Lanz firm, the transfer of rigid airship technology to France, Britain, and the United States, and the last, enigmatic flight of the German LZ-130 to carry out electronic surveillance along the east coast of England...