War Baby

Tucked away in rolling wheat fields near Fort Worth, Tex., is one of the most astonishing war babies of World War II. Its name: Globe Aircraft Corp. Its age: 25 months. Its plant: an oversized barn. Its manufacturing experience: construction of only two small planes. Its backlog in War Department contracts: $18,500,000 (with $40,000,000 more said to be in prospect). Its chief owners: extraordinary and influential people.

Globe started as Bennett Aircraft Corp. in March 1940, but Backer Frank Bennett was bought out ten months later. The company has an authorized capital of $350,000 and smart, Scottish-born John Kennedy as president. Kennedy went to Texas during World War I, picked up a reputation as an amateur boxer, made money in chemicals, vaccines, livestock. He set up Globe with the help and cheers of the local Chamber of Commerce. Its plant was a 50-by-300-ft. tile and galvanized-iron barn built for Kennedy's string of show horses. Its intended product was a good-looking, twin-engined plastic-and-plywood "Executive Transport" designed to carry eight, sell for $35.000. This ship was built on the West Coast before Globe was formed.

Globe never built any more, never sold the first one. But the company hired en gineers, designed another: a saucy, low-winged monoplane to sell for $3,000 to catch the civilian flivver-plane market. Globe built two of these, but just when prospects looked good the Government halted all private plane manufacture.

This research and development cost an estimated $300,000. Last Jan. 31 the company had $23,604 in the bank.

On this sad scene appeared John R. ("Jock") McLean, 26-year-old son of Washington's wealthy Evalyn Walsh Mc Lean, owner of the Hope Diamond. Softball-playing Jock McLean is also brother-in-law of North Carolina's Bob Reynolds--the 57-year-old "Fighting Bob" who married Jock's 20-year old sister Evalyn last October. Reynolds is chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, before which come all Army appropriations bills.

Young Jock, interested in Dallas' Southern Aircraft Corp., began traipsing over to Globe several times a week to watch progress on the company's sleek new monoplanes. Then he started buying Globe stock. Now he and his independently rich wife, Agnes Pyne McLean, own 16% of all Globe shares, can be outvoted only by Kennedy's 17%. A month ago Jock and Agnes both became vice presidents and directors of Globe.

Meanwhile President Kennedy started making frequent trips to Washington. In January he got a juicy $18,514,613 War Department contract for "transitional trainers." Since Globe had no suitable plane of its own, Kennedy arranged to make Beechcraft trainers under special license. Globe also snagged a $400,000 contract to make fins and stabilizers for Beech Aircraft--Beech providing all materials.

Last week Kennedy's horses still ambled up to the barn window, idly stared inside, switched their tails. But President Kennedy was plenty excited. He had just learned that the Defense Plant Corp. had okayed an $800,000-odd contract for factory-sized additions to his barn. With this money--plus all or part of the 30% cash advance on his Army contract--Kennedy hopes that by Sept. 1, the first Globe-built Beechcraft will roll out the factory doors.

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