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Show J. Ja o"y Pearson Washington, D. C. LOOKING 'EM OVER The other day, the White House called WPB's production wizard, Charlie Wilson, to come to see the President. Wilson went, not knowing know-ing what it was about and not knowing know-ing he was to stay to lunch. When he got there, he found himself lunching lunch-ing with FDR, all alone. The conversation ranged over everything ev-erything under the sun, from the problems of business management to Far Eastern trade to Latin American Amer-ican relations to war plant reconversion. recon-version. When the President asked for Wilson's views on world trade, the former General Electric executive execu-tive replied: "Mr. President, I'm a manufac-urer, manufac-urer, not a merchandiser." The luncheon lasted more than two hours and, after it was over, Wilson Wil-son didn't know quite what to make of it, because no very important problems regarding war production had been discussed. When he expressed ex-pressed bewilderment to close friends later, they replied: "Why, Charlie, you're just a political po-litical neophyte! Don't you know what he was doing? Looking you over to see how you would do as second man on the ticket.' Embarrassed, Wilson replied: "People don't seem to know that 'm a Republican." NOTE Some politicos figure that the President is now looking for a conservative running mate with a Republican background who would swing votes from business. Undersecretary Under-secretary of State Ed Stettinius is an active bidder for the job. Some conservative groups also figure that, if they can pick the vice president, FDR will resign shortly after the war and they will be in the saddle. AN'ZIO ORDNANCE Although the problem of supply on che Anzio beachhead has been emphasized, em-phasized, another factor which the public doesn't realize is the problem prob-lem of ordnance. Inside that slender foothold in Italy, there must be not only kitchens and temporary hospitals but, even more important, ammunition dumps and repair shops. This is the job of ordnance. A tank is no good unless it is kept in repair and it is the job of ordnance not only to build tanks, but to train men to go along with them into the field of battle to see that they are kept running. The same is true of artillery and every other type of weapon. That is why the Anzio beachhead has to maintain machine shops and repair garages, plus a large number of trained ordnance men to keep the weapons at the front operating. All of this has to be done under the terrific ter-rific hazard of enemy artillery fire, because Nazi big guns are never out of range. Paradoxical fact is that the man responsible for the good job being done by ordnance is a former navy man. He is hard-hitting Maj. Gen. Levin Campbell, chief of ordnance, who graduated from Annapolis but later joined the coast artillery and has been in the army ever since. It was Campbell who decentralized decentral-ized the somewhat moribund ordnance ord-nance department shortly after Pearl Harbor, moving ammunition to St. Louis, automotive vehicles to Detroit, safety and security to Chicago, Chi-cago, artillery carriages to Rock Island, Is-land, 111., and getting things away from Washington where, as he says, "People are always breathing down your neck." It was Campbell who cleared the iecks for the famous bazooka antitank anti-tank gun. Though he has been criticized for not developing an airplane air-plane rocket gun similar to the Germans' Ger-mans' weapon, it was really General "Hap" Arnold, chief of the air forces, who failed to take action on the airplane rocket gun when its feasibility was proposed several years ago by Arnold's arch-critic, Major Seversky. I Actually, the ordnance depart-1 depart-1 ment has to be guided by what the ! fighting services want. "They never 1 get credit for the new inventions 1 they develop," according to Assist-' Assist-' ant Secretary of War McCloy, "but if they ever miss one, they catcb hell." MERRY-GO-ROUND C Mystery recently surrounded the apartment of the Argentine assistant air attache, Lieut. Ronald J. Rossi-Iter. Rossi-Iter. His rooms at the Marlyn apartments apart-ments were charred and burned. In the diplomatic corps, the gossip was I that dirty work had taken place because be-cause of Argentina's anti - U. S. policy pol-icy . . . Solution of the mystery: Lieutenant Rossiter went to sleep smoking, had to be rushed to a hospital, hos-pital, and was kept under an oxygen tent to recover from carbon monoxide monox-ide poisoning. C, Tlie warning that more farmers must be drafted comes on the heels of another warning that Italian prisoners pris-oners no longer can be counted on Cor farm labor. The status of Italy as a co-belligerent will soon take Italians out of the prisoner category. : C, Harold Hopper, recently resigned i chief of WPB's motion picture section, sec-tion, is urging the American cinema ' industry to get busy now to prevent : motion picture embargoes after the 1 war. Free distribution of movies- ! me of the best means of American ' 'jropaganda should be a plank al j.iie pence table. Hopper urges. |