Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.Armed Forces: Denting the Featherbed
To change anything in the Na-a-vy is like punching a featherbed. You punch it with your right and you punch it with your left until you are finally exhausted, and then you find the damn bed just as it was before you started punching. —F.D.R., as quoted by Marriner Eccles
Into an auditorium filled with some 4,000 Navy and Marine officers marched spray-fresh Navy Secretary John B. Connally Jr. to punch at the featherbed. Connally had called the meeting of every officer in the Washington area, including 65 admirals and Marine generals, to...
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