Right Hand & Left

The Truman Committee had its teeth in Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey and was unwilling to let go. After gnawing at Standard's synthetic-rubber deals. Chairman Harry S. Truman posed with President W. S. Parish mugging through a Standard synthetic tire. Then he took a new bite: at Standard's sales to Lati, the Italian airline which ferried Axis agents and funds between Rome and Brazil.

Standard's Lati sales were roundly damned by the Justice Department's Thurman Arnold and the Commerce Department's William La Varre. Finally came the State Department's Assistant Secretary Adolf A. Berle Jr., with a calmer appraisal:

The State Department was negotiating with Brazil to ground Lati and Condor, its German-controlled colleague in the interior of Brazil. Until Brazil had substitutes, Lati and Condor were a necessary evil. So, pending a solution, the State Department had an agreement with Standard Oil: deliveries to the airlines continued, but only as approved by the U.S. Embassy.

Standard refused to cancel its formal contract with Condor until the State Department threatened to invoke its black list. But Berle hinted that the company may have wanted the blacklist threat as a defense against a possible breach-of-contract suit. President Parish hailed this interpretation as plain truth.

The Truman Committee chiefly proved, by hearing State, Justice and Commerce, that the Government's left hand does not always know what its right hand is doing. And a corporation dealing with one Federal hand has no guarantee against swats from the other.

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