Squall

The new superliner United States was turned over to U.S. Lines Corp. last week in the middle of a new squall over the cost of the ship. The line had paid $28 million, the Government $42 million in a subsidy, giving it the right to requisition the ship in an emergency as a troop transport. But for weeks Comptroller General Lindsay Warren has been complaining that the subsidy was $10 million too high, and that the line's ante should be raised.

Last week Harry Truman indicated that he agreed with Warren. Noting that he had twice asked U.S. Lines to discuss contract changes, and had twice been turned down, the President ordered the Attorney General to investigate the contract. Said he: "I deplore this attitude on the part of the company."

But while the President was getting this off his chest, Commerce Secretary Charles Sawyer penned a letter to a House maritime subcommittee. Sawyer accused Comptroller General Warren of making "silly and untrue" statements. Wrote Sawyer: Warren simply wanted to create "a public impression that the Comptroller General, a knight in white armor, is defending the taxpayers from some nefarious plot to which I and the Maritime Board are parties ... If a private citizen makes a bad contract, he is not allowed three years later to say that he ... will not go through with it. The same should apply to the Government . . ."

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