Muff

Navy's rich, ill-famed Elk Hills oil reserves has raised the hair of Congress for the past fortnight. Many a Congressman, suddenly made aware of the contract which Navy Secretary Frank Knox signed last November with Standard Oil of California to pump oil from Elk Hills, mumbled of Teapot Dome. By last week, two House committees, Naval Affairs and Public Lands, were probing the contract, which was abrogated after the Justice Department found it "illegal and invalid." They had failed to uncover any skulduggery.

Congressional hair relaxed. Asked by the Public Lands Committee why he had not submitted the contract to the Justice Department before signing it, bluff Secretary Knox meekly explained: "I just muffed it there."

TIME, July 5, 1943

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