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"A Grand Lot." After these witnesses, all of whom had been personally involved in the Navy's accusations, voices began to tone down. To the witness stand came Herbert Hoover to say sadly: "It requires a year for newly wedded couples to get used to each other ... I suppose one of the requirements of maintaining freedom is the public washing of linen." Came George Marshall to recall how he had to go out of his way during World War II to keep the proud and sensitive Navy happy, how he had to exercise "great restraint on the air fellows" because "I was opposed to overstatement of power and understatement of limitations."
The final witness was Defense Secretary Louis Johnson. He was expected to clash noisily with the House Committee's Chairman Carl Vinson, who had characterized Johnson's recent order to cut $800 million from defense expenditures as "grandstanding." Johnson was in his most ingratiating mood, and so was Vinson. He was just trying to keep everybody within the President's budget, Johnson said. He believed in the Marine Corps, the admirals were "a grand lot." Vinson congratulated him on "a very fine statement."
Time for a Chew. At week's end, the committee had nothing to do but take Vinson's advice and go home. Chairman Vinson would go down to his Georgia cotton farm and ruminate over a cud of tobacco. In January his committee would write its report.
The hearings had proved one thing: that unification, willed by Congress, begun by a harried James Forrestal and rushed on by an imperious Louis Johnson, had not gotten very far. The incorrigible and indomitable admirals and generals were still squared off. The hearings were over, but the atmosphere remained: electric and unhealthy. It was obviously time for everybody to ruminate.