AVIATION: Dutch v. Charlie

What may some day be the biggest and roughest fight in U.S. industry last week flared into the open. The battlers: the rich, powerful automobile manufacturers, epitome of U.S. industrial might, v. the fast-growing aircraft makers, symbolic of U.S. designing and technical agility. The fracas has been stewing ever since the British asked Detroit to make plane engines early in 1940. It will get really hot when Detroit goes after the civilian or transport plane market after the war.

Up rose North American Aviation President James Howard ("Dutch") Kindelberger, a purple talker. Before a trainload of newsmen ogling his vast...