Victory recommended immediate suspension of DeKlyn and immediate acceptance of the resignation he was reportedly preparing. DeKlyn was not at the laboratory when Victory visited, "having taken leave of absence to visit Pittsburgh in quest of another position," but Victory was told that he was resigning "as a protest against . . . the Washington office." 32

At least two men at the laboratory gave Victory support in his findings and apparently some hope that the situation could be salvaged. Edward P. Warner, the chief physicist, and Leigh M. Griffith, the NACA staff engineer recently assigned to Langley, cooperated with Victory on his inspection and agreed to the remedies Victory prescribed. Soon thereafter Victory was dealing directly with Griffith in the conduct of laboratory business, and two years later Griffith was officially appointed engineer-in-charge. 33

Griffith ran a better show at Langley than his predecessor, but he had more favorable conditions to work under. Relations with the army had improved. Some quarters were at least available. Plans were afoot to build a recreational camp for the staff. The laboratory's facilities were in use, lending a sense of purpose and accomplishment to the activities of the researchers. The staff had divided into working sections set up much as they would remain for the next twenty years. The research was showing results, the staff was growing, and new facilities. were being planned. Even a research policy of sorts was taking shape. In short, the future of the laboratory was brightening. Furthermore, Griffith was an old friend and colleague of George Lewis, and their close personal relationship surely eased the course of business between headquarters and staff.34 Still, these improvements were not enough to keep Griffith from clashing with John Victory over administration. In 1924, for example, Victory returned a voucher to the laboratory for “re-execution in a neat and proper manner." The document was the carbon copy of a proposal or requisition that had marks and alterations on it. To Victory it presented "an improper appearance," and he directed that any such untidy document should be recopied before being sent to headquarters. "There is no excuse," he proclaimed, "for such misdirected efforts at labor saving [italics in original]."'35

In fact, there was an excuse, for the voucher had not been prepared by the laboratory, as Victory had assumed, but by a commercial supplier over whom the laboratory had no control. Since the laboratory was required to send the original copy to headquarters, it had no choice but to foul Victory's in-basket with "an improper appearance." To his credit, Griffith tried conciliation, addressing a "Dear John" letter to Victory in which he suggested that the "degree of personal contact between the Laboratory and the Washington office has been insufficient to ensure that close sympathy and understanding which will

alone prevent the development of small differences due to lack of appreciation of the difficulties and problems of the associated organizations."36

This entreaty had no apparent effect. Within six months, relations between Victory and Griffith had so deteriorated that their correspondence was barely civil, Griffith was looking elsewhere for work, and Victory was recommending his removal. The final crisis was precipitated by a dispute over correspondence policy. Unwilling to argue the fine points of administrative etiquette with Griffith, Victory sought to terminate a quibbling exchange of letters by directing that "argumentative matter, unnecessary matter, and impertinent and irrelevant matter be eliminated from official correspondence." Griffith wrote back the next day, suggesting that Victory take his own advice and rewrite his letter accordingly. That did it. Victory advised Griffith that he was making the whole topic “a matter of official record in order to check a growing practice . . . destructive of discipline and efficiency in the orderly conduct of routine business relations between the Committee and its laboratory." That language foreshadows the charges on which Billy Mitchell would come before a court-martial later the same year. To Griffith it was: "Good evidence of [the] ignorance and impossible attitude of Asst. Secy.' "37 Before the year was out, both Griffith and Warner had swelled the ranks of promising young engineers who had left the NACA laboratory. Some left because of the generally poor conditions at Langley, or the dim prospects there, or the chance of a better position with industry; but more than one of the departures could be charged to the officious John Victory. 38

Griffith was succeeded by Henry J.E. Reid, a young electrical engineer in whom the NACA finally found that rare and indispensable combination of talents: the ability to get along with both the laboratory staff and John Victory, to master both the technical demands of aeronautical research and the bureaucratic demands of administering a NACA field installation. Reid was only 30 when he took over as engineer-in-charge at Langley. He was 63 and in the same post when the Committee went out of business in 1958, and was second only to John Victory in length of service to the NACA.

His longevity and success can be attributed to two things, his professional interests and his disposition. Reid moved up to head the laboratory from the instrument section, where he had pioneered in designing and developing instruments for aeronautical research, most importantly a V-G (velocity-gravity) recorder to measure and record the airspeed and normal acceleration of an aircraft in flight. Because the instrument section did work for all other sections of the laboratory, Reid had come into regular contact with all of his colleagues and had developed an appreciation of their work. This, of course, served him

well when he came to administer the research program at the laboratory; though his time was increasingly given over to administration, as the years wore on, he never lost his interest or his expertise in instrumentation. He kept his hand in, and this helped him understand the problems of his staff and maintain their respect and sympathies. 39

Reid's ability to get along with John Victory is a tribute to his disposition. An easy-going man of manageable ego and even temper, he ran Langley with a keen intuition for when to give people a free hand, when to rein them in. Deeply ingrained in him was the engineer's propensity for order and reason. Like Victory, he wanted the NACA organization (and the Langley laboratory in particular) to run like a quiet machine; unlike Victory, he could communicate that wish to his subordinates without being imperious or heavy-handed. An ideal buffer between Victory at headquarters and the staff at Langley, he intervened more than once to the advantage of all concerned. With Reid in place, the organizational and administrative structure that dominated the NACA until World War II was established.40

MAX MUNK: THE RESEARCH PROGRAM

But what was the NACA to do? What kind of research would the NACA undertake, and how would it be selected, conducted, and reported? Some of these questions were answered even before the laboratory was dedicated; some were worked out slowly, even painfully, as the Committee's structure and facilities evolved.

The NACA began by dividing aeronautical research among the government agencies involved: the military services, the National Bureau of Standards, and the NACA. The army and navy, it was understood, would do "technical engineering work" aimed at the de

velopment of specific military aircraft. Most of this research would consist of developing specifications for aircraft, supervising the production and acceptance of prototypes, and testing aircraft to see if they met the standards and if they could be improved. 41

This left to the National Bureau of Standards and to the NACA what both agencies liked to call scientific or fundamental work: research into the basic scientific principles applicable to all kinds of aviation, not just to a certain airplane or type of aircraft the services might be developing. They wanted to study ailerons in general or radial engines, not just the control surfaces or power plant of this or that particular military aircraft. Of course, both agencies did research on request for the services, but they tried to limit this to instances when they had unique facilities the services could not duplicate, or when the research promised some fundamental data applicable to all aeronautics.42

The two most important areas for aeronautical research at the end of World War I were aerodynamics and power plants. The NACA and the NBS divided these, the NACA concentrating on aerodynamics, the NBS on engines. The NBS had been doing research on engines before the NACA was created; as many of the problems related to engines in general were applicable to aviation engines, it was natural for the NBS to continue this work. Because the NACA tried always to avoid duplication and to give a wide berth to the territory of other agencies, it limited its own work on engines and contracted out to the NBS much of what needed to be done. Samuel Stratton, director of the NBS in 1916, chaired the NACA's Power Plants Committee from its inception until he left the NACA in 1931, even though he had departed the NBS in 1922 to become president of MIT. He and his successors up to World War II saw to it that the lion's share of aircraft-engine research went to the Bureau. Of course, the NACA did not neglect engines entirely; George Lewis and Leigh Griffith both came to the Committee with backgrounds in engine research, and the engine-dynamometer laboratory was one of the first structures built at Langley. But the very first test facility built there was a wind tunnel, and what was first was foremost. In the crucial years immediately after World War I the NACA settled upon aerodynamics as its main field of interest, an orientation it never lost.43

Another reason for the NACA to go slowly on engines was that industry already had its own engine-research facilities when the Committee was formed. The pivotal 1916 conference that broke the deadlock over manufacturing aircraft engines for the war had revealed the existence of a considerable engine-research capability in the private sector, independent of the government support and attention needed for aerodynamics and other more esoteric branches of aeronautics.

Unfortunately, the NACA may have relied too heavily on its first impression of the aircraft-engine industry, received when the field was dominated by automobile-engine manufacturers. Because the NACA adamantly refused to admit industry representatives to its Main Committee or main technical committees, it had no sure mechanism for staying abreast of developments. Its neglect of engine research may well have been based in part on a false sense of security.44

Nevertheless, the Committee had succeeded in selecting an area of specialization-aerodynamics—claimed by no other government agency but still offering real opportunity to advance aeronautical science. Once its field was chosen, however, the NACA had great difficulty deciding how to proceed. The minutes and correspondence of the early years exhibit a striking lack of technical knowledge within the NACA about how to construct a research program, or what facilities would be needed, or what specific questions should be pursued. The members of the NACA were genuinely convinced of the need for aeronautical research in the United States, yet-with only one or two exceptionsnone of them had very much idea about what to do, once the opportunity to prepare a program was before them.45

The Committee might have asked its engineering staff for a program, but it did not. George Lewis, after all, had been hired as an executive officer, not as the director of aeronautical research for whom the Committee had been searching. He was an engineer, and what the Committee had in mind was a program of scientific research. Leigh Griffith's memorandum commenting on the Committee's future had contained much advice on the structure of the organization but little on the substance of a program. It was important counsel in its way, as were other early contributions of the NACA's engineers, but more was needed. For this the Committee turned to scientists, and European scientists at that.46

First the NACA tried George de Bothezat, a Russian aeronautical engineer of auspicious reputation. After several interviews with Bothezat in the spring of 1918, Joseph Ames wrote to Stratton:

I am convinced that he can be of more use to our Committee, at the present time, than any man in America. . . He knows more about propellers, design of wind tunnels and all that than any other man in the world, I think. . .

I beg to urge upon you the imperative need of engaging his services instantly. . . . In my judgement, he should be engaged now as a technical advisor to assist our engineers. . . . They are eager for his help and questions are arising every minute where he can be of untold assistance. . . . His schemes are very far reaching and full of great interest. I know of no plans which are more important for the development of the airplane.47