Form No.ASI-603

DepartmentLegal

IssuedSpring 1959

ClassificationUnrestricted — Public Record

RevisionStenographer’s record, unedited, at the President’s insistence

HeardWashington, February 1959

TranscriptPublic Record

Legal — Basement, Rear

Testimony Before The Senate

In February the President was invited to appear before a Senate subcommittee on defence procurement, concerning the 1956 shower-curtain contract and, in the chairman’s phrase, “certain other activities at the Michigan site”. He went. He spoke for two hours and forty minutes. The record follows, unedited, because he would not have it edited.

Reproduced by Legal from the official record. Legal did not attend. Legal was not asked.

2h 40mTestimonyScheduled for forty minutes

7Senators presentFour at the end

11Passages strickenPrinted anyway

3GavelsOne broke

0Questions declinedOne changed

I want it understood that I went to Washington voluntarily, that I answered every question they put to me, that Legal begged me on the platform at Marquette to take a lawyer and I did not, and that the record below is the whole of it. Some of it the committee struck. I have had the struck parts printed with a line through them so that you can read both what I said and what they wished I had not.

The Record

Subcommittee on Defence Procurement — Hearing, February 1959 — Extract

[The witness is sworn. The witness declines to sit.]

ChairmanMr. Johnson, you are the president of Aperture Science Innovators of Upper Michigan?

Mr. JohnsonI own it. President is what it says on the door. Owner is what it means.

ChairmanAnd your company holds a contract, awarded in 1956, to supply shower curtains to the armed services.

Mr. JohnsonTo every branch of the armed services except the Navy. I would like that in the record exactly. Every branch except the Navy.

ChairmanWhy except the Navy, Mr. Johnson?

Mr. JohnsonSenator, I have been asking that question since 1956 and you are the first man in Washington who has asked it back. The letter is in my safe. It is not in this room.

[Laughter. The chairman gavels.]

Sen. MarshMr. Johnson, the committee understands your company operates a testing programme at the Michigan site involving members of the public.

Mr. JohnsonVolunteers. Sixty dollars, cash, the same day, out of a tin. Four thousand one hundred and eighteen men have walked into my gate house since 1954 and I am proud of every one of them, including the two thousand eight hundred and one who read the form and walked back out.

Sen. MarshAnd what does this programme test?

Mr. JohnsonWhatever we have built that week. Senator, science is not about why. It is about why not. Why not put a man in front of it and see what he does. The gentlemen in New Mexico have been asking why for three years about a problem I settled in a weekend with a curtain and a volunteer named Hal.

ChairmanThe committee will not hear remarks about other facilities.

Mr. JohnsonThen the committee is going to have a quiet afternoon, because there is nothing I have done in sixteen years that I did not do better than them.

[Stricken by direction of the chair.]

Sen. HollowayMr. Johnson. Your company’s accounts for the last fiscal year record an expenditure of eleven million dollars on what is described as lunar substrate.

Mr. JohnsonEleven million four hundred thousand. If you are going to read my books read them right.

Sen. HollowayWould you explain that expenditure to the committee?

Mr. JohnsonI bought the moon. All of it I could get. Forty-one dealers, nine countries, fourteen months, and it is the finest conductor of a quantum tunnelling field ever measured, and it is in my building, and it is not in anybody else’s, and that is the explanation. It is also my money.

Sen. HollowayMr. Johnson, is it your testimony that you spent eleven million dollars on rocks?

Mr. JohnsonIt is my testimony that I spent eleven million four hundred thousand dollars on the moon, Senator, and if the United States had spent it first you would not be asking me.

[The chairman gavels. The gavel breaks. A recess of eleven minutes.]

ChairmanWe are resumed. Mr. Johnson, you will confine yourself to the questions.

Mr. JohnsonI have confined myself to nothing since 1943 and I do not intend to start in a room with a broken hammer in it.

ChairmanThe witness will be in contempt.

Mr. JohnsonThe witness has been in contempt of this town since he was old enough to read a newspaper.

[Stricken by direction of the chair.]

Sen. MarshMr. Johnson, the committee has received correspondence from the family of a Mr. Tremblay, a former employee of your company, who has not been heard from since May of last year.

Mr. JohnsonMr. Tremblay was employee of the month in May of last year. His photograph is on my commissary wall. I hung it myself.

Sen. MarshThat is not the question, Mr. Johnson. The family wishes to know where he is.

Mr. JohnsonSenator, let me tell you about the curtain. In 1943 I had four hundred dollars and a bolt of vinyl and a garage in Ishpeming, and the Army needed two hundred thousand curtains, and every one of them held water, and if you think that has nothing to do with quantum tunnelling then you have never made two hundred thousand of anything.

Sen. MarshMr. Johnson —

Mr. JohnsonTwelve grommets. Ten was small thinking. I raised it to twelve in 1948 and I have never explained why and I am not going to explain it to a subcommittee.

Sen. MarshMr. Johnson, I will ask you once more —

Mr. JohnsonHe went through an eleven-inch pair, Senator, and there is a photograph, and in the photograph he is standing behind himself, and I have had that photograph on my desk for nine months and I do not know what to write to his mother, and I have tried, and I would be grateful if you would let me get back to the curtain.

[Stricken by direction of the chair. The witness is silent for some time.]

Sen. HollowayMr. Johnson, does your company have a board of directors?

Mr. JohnsonNo.

Sen. HollowayA chief officer, a deputy, anyone who could speak for the company in your absence?

Mr. JohnsonThere is a woman on the third floor who has run the place since 1946 and has never once been wrong about anything that mattered and if this committee wants to know how Aperture is governed it should have subpoenaed her, and it is a matter of some private relief to me that it did not.

Sen. HollowayHer name, for the record?

Mr. JohnsonCaroline.

Sen. HollowayHer full name, Mr. Johnson.

[The witness does not answer. The witness does not answer a second time. The chairman moves to the next matter.]

ChairmanMr. Johnson, is there anything you wish to add before the committee rises?

Mr. JohnsonYes. Every branch except the Navy. Cave Johnson. We’re done here.

[The witness leaves the room before the committee rises. The committee rises.]

The committee’s report, issued in March, runs to four pages, recommends no action, and does not mention the moon. Legal has read it eleven times looking for the trap and has not found one.

“It is my testimony that I spent eleven million four hundred thousand dollars on the moon, Senator, and if the United States had spent it first you would not be asking me.”

— Cave Johnson, to the subcommittee, on the substrate

What Was Not In The Room

Legal: Not asked. Begged him on the platform at Marquette to take a lawyer.
Caroline: Not subpoenaed. Not named. He would not give the surname and there is none on file.
The Navy letter: In the safe. Still in the safe.
The photograph: On his desk. Nine months. Face down since February.
The moon: In Michigan, where it will stay

Verifying personnel file…

He came back from Washington and did not say a word about it for four days and then he said “they asked your name” and went down to the bench. That is all he has said. — C.

Public Record — UneditedEleven Passages Stricken — Printed Anyway

The broken gavel was sent to the company by a clerk of the subcommittee in March, with a note reading “you may as well have it”. It is on the third floor, on the desk, next to the photograph.

Form ASI-603. The 1956 contract is described at Form ASI-201; the substrate expenditure at Form ASI-601; the volunteer programme at Form ASI-302. Mr. Tremblay’s citation is at Form ASI-505. Legal has read this sheet and has gone home.

they asked her name and he stopped. two hours forty of talking and thats where he stopped