“The Acquisition of Weapons Systems

Hearings before the Subcommittee on Priorities and Economy in Government

Pg 1825 - GRUMMAN REDUCES F-14 PROPOSAL BY $500 MILLION

On the 6th of January 1969, when negotiations were going on between Grumman and McDonnell-Douglas, they came in right in the midst, right at the end of the negotiations and … reduced their bid proposal by $500 million.

Now, oddly enough, it is just about $500 million that they say they want now from the Government, and it is no coincidence, in my opinion. I think the taxpayers of this country have a right to know ...”

Thursday, January 2, 1969:                                                                              

Dulles Airport, West of Washington D.C.

“Where is she?” Former bomber pilot, Capt. John Jacob MacDonald, rolled his wheelchair away from his crowded family. “Where’s my Amy-Mac!  God Bless her – she just won’t stay in one spot. We need to board our flight all together!”

Annoyance prodded Capt. Mac, as he was affectionately called, to remember the day Amelia Delaney Wells-MacDonald was born.  After Maggie, his wife and Amy’s mother, had named their daughter – Capt. Mac, boldly renamed her.

“I’m calling her 'Amy-Mac', and nobody’s going to stop me!”

Mac’s hands grabbed the wheels of his chair and renewed his roll away from his family, bundled up in arctic coats and dragging months’ worth of luggage.  His sharp eyes scanned the crowd for his daughter.  He adjusted his wheelchair with perfect aim.

Maggie’s gentle, but firm hand on his shoulder made him pause. After twenty years together, Mac knew when he was being given good advice – even when unspoken. 

“She’s right there, sweetheart." Maggie Wells-MacDonald, his brilliant and beautiful, red-headed wife, pointed across Washington D.C.’s Dulles Airport interior trafficway. "Look over to your left, Mac.  You can’t miss her bright, blue mini-skirt under her red parka.  She’s having some sort of intense conversation with a young man.  Military, probably – with that haircut.” Maggie added her other hand to her husband’s shoulders and began to rub them. 

One couldn’t miss Amelia Delaney Wells-MacDonald.  She was a younger version of her sparkling, red-headed mother.  Amy-Mac had also inherited her father’s ability to “jerry rig” through imperfect situations.  Not a desirable trait, some outsiders thought.

Alerted to a new Amy-Mac drama, the rest of his family gathered around their captain.

“Military?” John Jacob MacDonald, once a proud American WWII B-17 pilot, respected all who had and were serving his country.  Amelia Delaney Wells-MacDonald, however, was his daughter.  So, medically retired Capt. Mac interrogated all males, within fifty yards of her, with Cold War intensity.  

Amy-Mac had learned at a tender age that, when it came to suitors, only the strong survived.

Amidst the wide and glistening interior traffic way of Dulles Terminal, Amy-Mac was looking up into the warm, emerald eyes of Thomas Jackson Adams.

He was in civilian clothes, but Amy guessed he was a military pilot.  She’d been around pilots all her life, and she’d decided he was one – but it didn’t matter.  The young man cut a striking figure—dark auburn hair tousled by rotor wash, eyes sharp and restless, always scanning for the next crisis before it struck.

His full lips, seemed set with a thoughtful smile.  There was a surprising softness to his face, shaped by discipline and danger. When he spoke, his baritone voice carried the calm authority of command, tempered by a gentleness that put even the most frantic survivor at ease. 

He must be a natural leader in the sky, she thought — steady, compassionate, and unshakably present.

Amy had spotted him when coming back from the British Airways counter to update her family on their upcoming flight, Dulles Airport to New York City.

Tom looked worried, standing there in the middle on the polished traffic way.  He was scanning the after-holiday crowd, from one end of the air terminal to the other.

Raised in various communities of heroes, Amy had never seen any military member look worried in public.  "Sir?" she gently stepped in front of him. "May I help you? I'm familiar with this airport. My family and I fly in and out of here several times a year."

"No, ma'am." Tom looked back from the end of the terminal and down into Amy's bright, green eyes.  He swallowed, remembered his military posture but retained his civilian get-along charm.  In a low, southern drawl, he explained, "It's my mother. She's not back from –"

Amy guessed Tom didn't want to admit his mother ever needed to deal with primitive needs.  So, Amy spared him, "Are you seeing her off, or is she here to support you?"

She didn’t expect an answer to her question.  As soon as Amy recognized the haircut, she’d assumed the serviceman in front of her was either coming in from or going out to Vietnam.

America was getting a good defender in that young man, she thought.  Muscularly trim, tan with warm eyes, rounded cheeks that supported a generous smile.

"She's seeing me off, ma'am,” Tom answered in the cadence of courtesy.  “We didn't leave enough time to take care of – everything we needed to."

Amy nodded, "Never enough time. Sir, my name is Amy Wells-MacDonald. You can call me 'Amy-Mac'. That’s what my dad calls me.” 

Tom spread an easy smile across his face.  "You don't need to call me 'sir', Miss Amy,” Tom answered with understated confidence, “I'm just Tom Adams, a 2nd Lieutenant.  There's no officer lower than me."

Amy smiled with a slight nod.  She knew the ranking order of the military’s hierarchy. 

“Let me just say,” she continued with spontaneous observations, “that the U.S. is lucky to have someone with your bearing defending us.  I'm attending Freie Universität – Free University – in Berlin. Every day, I am reminded that I live a safer existence because our U.S. service members are stationed throughout Germany."

Tom's first impression of the green-eyed girl, with reddish-blond hair, was quickly maturing as trustworthy.  Her clarity of mind and easy conversation resonated with him.

"Are you returning to Nam or heading there for the first time?" Amy’s mind filled with questions, sequenced from mild interest to cross-examining zeal.

"First time. I've been training to fly helicopters at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii. They gave me leave before reporting for duty in Nam.  So, I flew back to see Mom in Falls Church, Virginia. She's the Personnel Manager of a growing hospital there."

Amy could hear the pride Tom felt for his mother in his voice.  So, she looked from one end of the terminal to the other as Tom had, looking for a woman he resembled.

Tom seemed tall, but Amy knew he couldn't be more than six feet, due to Air Force pilot standards. She wondered if he'd gotten his height from his mother or father. Would his mother have lustrous, dark-auburn hair, like Tom? Would she have kind eyes and facial lines that curved so charmingly from a handsome nose, around smooth cheeks, up to the sharp, emerald eyes that held her gaze?

“Training on what, Tom?  If you’re in the Air Force, you must fly something.  My dad flew a B-17 bomber, until he was shot down over Berlin twenty-five years ago.”

Tom blushed.  He answered modestly, “I’ll be flying a Sikorsky HH-3E helicopter.  It’s nicknamed the ‘Jolly Green Giant’ – a ‘search and rescue’ aircraft.”

Amy bit her lower lip in complete recognition of “search and rescue” dangers in Southeast Asia, but quipped, “My dad is still crazy about anything that flies.  I think I’ve heard him talk about the ‘Jolly Greens’.”  Amy patted Tom’s arm, “You know the military.  Whatever a thing is called, they’ll slang the word until its ‘cool’.”   

Tom grinned and nodded in agreement. 

Without any concern for propriety, Amy asked, “So, just because I’m curious and don’t mind saying so, how much training does a ‘Jolly Green’ pilot go through?”

Tom coughed back a laugh and tried to answer without going into detail, “About 18 months, give or take.  We’re at war, Miss Amy.  Life’s scheduled achievements don’t always go as planned.”

Amy bit the side of her cheek, knowing that she should not tell him how sorry she was that his achievements would need to wait – if he survived to earn them.

Her dad, Mac, had regularly briefed his family on Vietnam combat statistics.  Just yesterday, in her grandparents’ Washington D.C. Watergate apartment, Mac and her grandfather, Frank Wells, got agitated over the appalling death and casualty numbers.

Mac had cursed and added, “That war has cost us 16,899 service personnel to date – 87,388 wounded.”

Amy’s grandfather, Frank Wells, had been gone from the U.S. Senate for six years.  There, he’d been a member of the Appropriations and Armed Services Committees, so everyone still called him “Senator,” including his own family.  No conversation about any American war was going to carry on without his opinions.

“We had no idea,” the Senator growled, “what the war was going to cost.  As of the end of last month last year, we’ve spent $84.33 billion in military expenditures alone.”

Amy rapidly blinked her eyes, as if to erase statistics and her painful reaction whenever she thought of people her age dying in war.

Instead, she cheerfully carried on, “Well, Tom, I’m sure you had plenty of achievements until the Air Force got you.  My dad played baseball and basketball before he ‘snuck’ out of the house one night to fight in World War II.”

Tom shook his head slightly.  “I couldn’t play basketball until my Senior Year.  I worked odd jobs after school – to help Mom.”  He cleared his throat, then regained his bearing.

Sensing a difficult past, Amy pressed on, “Well, I don’t know much about how the Air Force selects officers, but I do know that you must have gone to college at some point.”

“Yes, I did.  Almost finished.  I was in ROTC – Reserve Officers' Training Corps and had nearly completed all my coursework – when I got drafted.”

Amy’s eyebrows shot up, prompted by what she thought was government incompetence. 

Tom took a step closer and quietly assured her.  “Things will work out, Miss Amy.  As I said, I was very close to getting that degree.  My immediate superiors got involved, evaluated my paperwork and sent appeals through several chains-of-command. 

During my 18 months training, which included flight training, I managed – and don’t ask me how – to complete the coursework long distance.” Tom inhaled a steadying breath and looked down at her, now calm, “to become the ‘me’ that I am now.” 

They locked their gazes on each other as their understanding grew from their own “realities on the ground.” 

Overhead, the airport sound system was broadcasting last year’s hit “Wichita Lineman”, sung by Glen Campbell.  Tom and Amy both recognized the song and looked up.  When they looked back down again, they instinctively knew that it was a favorite they shared.

As Amy listened, she felt the “lineman’s” duty to finish the job, for the sake of those who depended on him.

Tom listened and heard, “I hear you singin’ in the wires, I can hear you through the whine …”

He sensed that she had the capacity to understand what most couldn’t or wouldn’t.  She believed that he needed more people to care about his mission under fire.

“Oh, enough about me, Miss Amy.  We’re both at an airport.  You know where I’m going.  Where are you going?”

Amy gave Tom a wide grin.  “Back to Berlin, back to college.  My parents are business consultants, so our family is always in the air, on a train or bus.  During school terms, Dad rents a car so that we can stay in whatever city my sister, brother and I are attending school.”

“That’s got to be a challenge.”  Tom felt comfortable enough with his perky companion to let polite filters fall away.

Amy shrugged, “It’s what we know.  Before I started school, the family business was staged out of Delaware, Ohio – where my dad’s family is.  Then, when I was to start first grade, we stayed in a Berlin hotel during the school term.  I attended a German elementary school at that point.”

“You speak German?” Tom’s ease began to fade, and he took a step back.

Noticing, Amy took a step forward.  “Speaking more than one language can come in handy – when one is accosted in the street.”

“Yes, ma’am – but a scream needs no translation and will get help faster than trying to remember the right words.”

Amy smiled, “I’ll write that down.”

“So, do you speak any other languages?”

“Well, German – and French.”  Amy gave Tom a teasing wink.  “My friends in Berlin speak more languages than I do.  My friend from France, Claire – speaks English, German, Hebrew, French, of course – and Russian. I need to learn Russian, too – to protect myself down the road.”

“Down the road?”  Tom stood a little straighter and stiffer.

Amy patted his arm.  “At ease, Lieutenant.  I’m just a student.  I have all kinds of ideas about my future.” 

Too late, she realized she might have implied Tom’s future might have less options.  Quickly, she pivoted and asked in a warmhearted way, “When do you need to report?”

Tom looked down at his itinerary, “A few days.”

“Much too soon.”  The voiced regret came from behind them.

Amy-Mac turned to see a lovely, dark-auburn haired woman approaching.  Nearly as tall as Tom, slender and confident, the lady walked toward them with her hand extended graciously.

Amy, a lifelong greeter and welcomer, eagerly offered her hand to the lady.

Tom firmly took control of introductions before Amy could announce herself. “Mom, I’d like you to meet Miss Amy Wells-MacDonald. She was coming back from the British Airways counter when she saw me looking for you … Miss Amy, this is my mother, Nora Adams.”

Amy-Mac released the woman’s hand when Tom finished his introduction.  Nora allowed her hand to be held by the lively, young stranger and smiled at her enthusiasm.

Their hands were warm when they parted – as was the space between them.

Reluctantly, Tom’s mother, Nora, reminded them of the inevitable.  “Tom, we need to get to Braniff Airline’s gate.  You don’t want to miss the mobile unit taking you out to the plane.”

Tom didn’t move.  He simply took advantage of his mother’s pause to stall.  “Yes, Miss Amy, Braniff is going to fly me to Dallas, then to Honolulu.  Hickam Air Force Base is close to Honolulu.”

Regret began to seep into Amy’s throat.  She cleared it away and asked, “How long will you be there before you fly – to your duty station?”

Tom took a smaller step closer.  “Don’t know, ma’am.  I’ve pretty much decided to go where they tell me – when they tell me to go there.”

Smiling sadly, Amy squeezed Tom’s arm, “I surely hope all God’s angels will fly with you, Tom.”

Rolling up into the conversation, Capt. Mac braked his wheelchair within an inch of Tom’s shoe. 

The former B-17 bomber pilot, turned engineer, then international business entrepreneur could no longer fly nor drive, but he knew how to hit his mark when he wanted to.

“So, Amy-Mac, who do we have here?” Mac asked casually enough to prevent glares from his daughter.

Amy flowed into the style and confidence her mother, Maggie, had modeled for her.  “Dad, I’d like you to meet Nora Adams and her son, 2^nd Lt. Tom Adams.”  She paused long enough for Mac to shake the hands of mother and son, measuring their grips for acceptability.

Tom shook Mac’s hand for as long as the father, of a very nice girl, would let him.  When the handshake didn’t seem to be losing any enthusiasm, Amy laid her hand on her father’s and said, “Dad, Tom is headed to Nam.  He’s a ‘Jolly Green’ pilot – you know, search and rescue – so, I’m very glad you came over here to wish him well.”

Sensing his entire family had followed, Mac eased his wheelchair back, making room for his wife, Maggie, to slip into Amy’s circle. Those remaining, all seasoned travelers and masters of spontaneous conversation, gathered around their captain.

Amy took charge.  “Mrs. Adams and Tom, I’d like you to meet my mother – well, she likes to be called ‘Maggie’, just Maggie.”  Amy motioned for her fourteen-year-old twin brother and sister to lean forward with handshakes.  “In no particular order, because they were born at the same time, is my brother, Luke – and my sister, Charlotte.”

A scowl from Charlotte prompted Amy to amend her introduction.  “My sister is ‘Charlie’. That’s the name she goes by.”

Tom, liking all the smiling faces of people Amy was introducing, shook hands with each.

That’s when the celebrities of the family stepped around the crowd to greet Nora first. 

“Mrs. Adams, I think I heard our Amy address you, I’d like to introduce myself, Frank Wells, and my wife, Helen.  We are Amy’s grandparents on her mother’s side.”

Nora responded respectfully but with caution, “You look familiar, Mr. Wells.”

Frank Wells still enjoyed toying with strangers who thought they recognized him.  “Oh, my goodness, Mrs. Adams.  Surely, you don’t remember an old codger like me from back when I left the Senate in 1963!”

The former Senator’s wife, Helen, gripped her arm around his, warning him to behave.

Unfazed, Nora delivered praise the former U.S. Senator from New England expected.  “Oh, my goodness, who doesn’t remember Senator and Mrs. Wells!  Your photos were either attached to headlines – or delighted all of us who read the ‘society’ pages.”

Tom shook his head slightly.  The green-eyed girl he’d just met, and wished he could get to know better, was already too good for him.  Had she merely been a multi-lingual college student, and not the granddaughter of a former U.S. Senator, he might have had a chance.

While Frank Wells entertained Nora Adams with Senate gossip, his family members turned their focus on his performance. Tom leaned down into Amy’s ear.  “Miss Amy, I’m beginning to think there’s not an angel in heaven willing to look out for me.”

Amy looked up into Tom’s sad eyes, “You’ve got lots of angels on your side, Tom.  We’re all right here.”

“That’s just it, Miss Amy. I wish I’d met you long before now.  We would have gotten to know one another.  I would have enjoyed good times with you – and your family.”

Amy did not respond.  Her look of understanding said it all.

“If I had met you long ago, I would have invited you to have coffee with me, go to events together, join my mother and me for supper.  I hope that you’d have invited me to special occasions with your family.  Now, there’s no chance –”

Amy started digging around in her handbag. 

Her clairvoyant mother, Maggie, reached over to Amy with two of her business cards.

“Just write your address and phone number in Berlin on the back of these cards.  Give one to Tom and the other to his mom.”

Amy nodded gratefully and, as she wrote, she told Tom, “Since you don’t know where you’re going, please send me your address, and any other way to contact you while you’re – where you end up.”

“Will you write to me, Miss Amy?”

“Yes, I will – and I’ll write to your mother, too.  I know that your mother will faithfully contact you – and now, you’ll have a lot of other people caring about your safety and mission accomplishments.”

Tom took Amy by the elbow and guided her out of family eavesdropping.

Seeing the maneuver, Mac started to roll toward them. 

Maggie set her hand firmly on his shoulder and warned.  “Not this time, Mac.  I know my daughter, and she’s decided.”

Mac looked up at his wife and squinted down one eye, “He’s the one?”

Maggie affirmed with an imperceptible nod.  “He’s the one.”

Off to the side, Tom was whispering to Amy.  “I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to call you – but if I can, I won’t care what the call would cost.  I promise you, Miss Amy, I’ll cherish every letter and write back whenever I can.  If I’d get a chance to call and do so, eventually, it will be time to hang up – I’ll hear you disconnect …”

Amy pulled back her head.  “I won’t disconnect.”

Tom gently massaged her arm.  “Eventually, I know I’ll hear a click.”

When she started to shake her head, he spoke right in her ear.  “That’s ok, Miss Amy.  Just know that, even though’ you hang up – I’ll still be on the line.”

They pulled their faces back from their close exchange.  They didn’t know each other well enough to be sad – but they were.

Nora moved in to hug her son and give him all her love and trust in his abilities.  The rest of the family Tom had just acquired also bid him a heartfelt “God speed”.

Tom still had hold of Amy’s arm when her father, Mac, rolled up to them again, locked his wheelchair’s brake and began to stand.

Amy knew better than to insert her support, and Tom instinctively knew that if the former pilot wanted help, he’d ask for it.

Mac stood, offered his hand to Tom, officer to officer, man to man.  Then, he stiffened into a long-ago posture he had not forgotten and saluted Tom.

Tom struck the pose and saluted back.

Nora grabbed Tom’s hand and started him toward the door to the mobile unit outside, its engine running to drive that flight’s passengers to the plane.  Tom kissed his mom and looked back at Amy.

“No matter what, Miss Amy,” he called back.  “I’ll still be on the line!”

+++++

 “Nation: The New Administration: The High Cost of Serving the Country”

 January 3, 1969, Time Magazine

“HIGH federal office often brings fame to a man and, once he returns to private life, fortune as well … That is particularly true for many of Richard Nixon’s Cabinet appointees, an uncommonly successful lot …

All twelve department heads get the same pay: $35,000 a year* plus such perquisites as the use of a limousine …

Even the two educators in the crowd face cuts in remuneration. George Shultz says that he will be making a “very substantial sacrifice” when he resigns as Dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business to become Secretary of Labor. He will also have to give up income from directorships of Borg-Warner, the General American Transportation Co., and the Stein, Roe and Farnham funds …”