William K. Divers Oral History Interview, February 19, 1970

Notice
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened September 1971
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

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HESS: Mr. Divers, in our last interview we mentioned that you and Mr. Blandford had testified before the Truman Committee regarding the housing at the Ford bomber plant. Just what were your impressions of Mr. Truman at that time?

DIVERS: Well, I think I mentioned once before that my father was from Missouri and a lifelong Democrat, and as a result, I was favorably disposed toward any Senator, any Democratic Senator from Missouri. I was not disappointed. I was very much impressed by then Senator Truman. I felt that he was completely objective, he asked pertinent questions. He was a little bit sharp at times but it was only in the interest of obtaining information and getting on with the job. Generally speaking, I was very

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much impressed by him and also felt that we had been treated quite fairly when we testified there.

HESS: You also mentioned that Mr. Hugh Fulton was there at the time. Do you recall any other of the staff members of the Truman Committee who might have been there?

DIVERS: No I don't. I don't recall anyone outside of Mr. Fulton.

HESS: Did you testify before the Truman Committee at any other times other than the Lustron Company matter which we'll defer for just a few minutes?

DIVERS: Not that I can recall.

HESS: I have a few general questions that I think we should fit in at this time to keep things in chronological order and one: What do you

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recall of Dorothy Rosenman's interest in housing matters? She was, of course, Mrs. Samuel I. Rosenman.

DIVERS: Yes, she was Judge Rosenman's wife and all I can recall is that she was important. I knew that she was important. I knew that she was influential. She never held any official position as I recall with the possible exception of one with the National Association of Housing Officials, NAHO. I think she held some position with that organization. I don't know, maybe we should mention that this National Association of Housing Officials was originally organized out in Chicago and was an offshoot of the University of Chicago group that was interested in housing. Originally they were interested in all types of housing; privately financed, publicly financed, and all different prices I might say.

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HESS: Who was involved in that? Do you recall any names?

DIVERS: Well, Coleman Woodbury was one of the organizers as I recall. And a man who taught out there and later became head of the Housing Administration, I forget his name right now, but I'11 remember it later on. Subsequently, NAHO became interested almost exclusively in public housing and, as a consequence, they lost the interest and support of a lot of people who were interested in the overall housing picture and didn't want to just confine their efforts and their knowledge and their limits--I mean to public housing.

HESS: What do you think spurred their interest in public housing; the fact that they were a downtown urban university?

DIVERS: No, I don't--I don't think so. I think that

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they were interested in organizing different groups of public officials. I think that they may have been responsible for organizing the mayors and the public safety officers and the different groups, and this was another group of public officials that they were interested in bringing together and organizing.

HESS: Was this a rather unique thing at the time? The cooperation between the academic and business world in the matters of housing?

DIVERS: I think it probably was. I know it was unique in the housing field and it may have been even unique in some other fields because it was at a time when business and the academic field were kind of far apart and didn't seem to have any interplay at all.

HESS: All right, moving on, where were you when you first heard of the death of President Roosevelt

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and what was your reaction?

DIVERS: Well, I was in an elevator in a hotel in downtown it was in downstate Illinois. I'm not sure whether--I believe it was in Peoria. And the elevator operator told us that we--that he'd just heard a flash to the effect that President Roosevelt had died, and I went down in the lobby and one of the things I remember was the shock I had when I heard some of the people there were exalting over the death of a great man. I was stunned and very sad to learn of the death of a great President. At that time I remember that a man named Joseph Karlson, who was the regional architect for the Housing Agency was with me and, as I recall, I called my wife that night so that we could exchange sympathies with each other, and with my children.

We used to go to Denver for vacation. My

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wife is from Denver, Colorado, so we went out to visit her family each summer and I--one of my earliest political recollections was of my younger daughter who was then about two, parading through the club car of the train with a--announcing to everybody that she was for Roosevelt.

HESS: She was getting into politics early.

DIVERS: Yes, she was getting into politics early and she's always been interested in politics.

HESS: Had you ever met President Roosevelt in person?

DIVERS: I had met him at a reception before the war started. I'm sure that I met him--you know it's--I don't think I imagined it now, but I can't place the time or the date.

HESS: Do you recall what your impressions were of him at the time?

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DIVERS: No, I don't. I was probably so young and so stunned that I didn't have any real impression. I'd never talked to him. I never talked to him, I know that. And, likewise, I shook hands with Mrs. Roosevelt and never talked to her, never had any discussions with her. When I came to Washington in 1933, I was just twenty eight years old and had a minor position in the Government as a fledgling attorney so that I didn't have any immediate contacts with any of the important people in Washington.

HESS: Shortly after hearing the news of President Roosevelt's death, and at that time, just what kind of a President did you think that Mr. Truman would make? Looking back on those days.

DIVERS: I would say that I probably thought that he would make a better than average President. The Presidents that I remembered were Roosevelt, who was--who had been President a good part of my adult life and whom we all thought was a very great man and a great President. And there was Hoover, who had not had very good public relations, and the newspapers had probably given us a little

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distorted view of the man because I think he probably would have done a better job than he was credited with.

HESS: You think he deserved better than he got?

DIVERS: Yes. And Harding, who was not classified as a great President by the historians, certainly, so that ...

HESS: What about "Silent Cal?"

DIVERS: Well, Coolidge was--had a good reputation and had taken us through some good times--so that and I guess that that takes me back a good ways. So, I thought that Truman would probably--at that time I had the impression that he would be below Roosevelt and above the others in terms of the Presidency.

HESS: All right, moving back up to a little closer to our time period. In October of 1945, now that

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was near the end of your period as Regional Representative of the National Housing Agency, and in October of 1945, wartime restrictions were removed from the use of building materials for forty days, and at the end of that time, the restriction had to be reimposed, and the person responsible for their removal was John W. Snyder, who at that time, was Director of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. Do you recall that? When restrictions were removed for forty days in the fall of 1945 and it was found that they had to be reimposed?

DIVERS: There was a difference of opinion at that time as to whether it would be desirable to remove restrictions or to continue them. Some people were of the opinion that the Government regulations were hampering the flow of materials and the distribution of them. That there were ample supplies and that if the restrictions and

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regulations were taken off that everything would be everything--would take care of itself.

HESS: What was your view?

DIVERS: As I recall I thought that it was too early.

HESS: To remove the restrictions?

DIVERS: Too early to remove the restrictions. I thought that we should work towards the idea of removing the regulations, but I thought that this was too early for us to do it. There was a terrific pent up demand for construction of all types. And since the people who would build could make more money from building commercial structures, or industrial structures, the materials and labor all gravitated in that direction, and as a result, it created even greater shortages in materials that could be used in both types of buildings. I mean both commercial, industrial,

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and residential. And the residential suffered because of even greater shortages of materials than they'd previously had. Actually, the builders of homes, the limited number of homes that were permitted, after V~E Day and before V-J Day, the builders suffered from shortages of materials and had to use substitutes and I'm sure that the quality of construction was not up to prewar standards, but they did manage to find materials that they could use with the priorities that they were given by the Government agencies. And I think that, as I recall, that it was largely as a result. of the complaints of the homebuilders that they couldn't get materials, that the regulations were reimposed.

HESS: Do we have part of that problem remaining with us today? Is it more economical for a builder to go out and build an office building, for instance, rather than a residential building?

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DIVERS: Today there isn't any shortage of materials. There is some skilled labor that is short, but I don't think it's in the building trades now. That the shortage today is in money and the lending institutions can get a higher return on their money by lending it to people who are investing in commercial or industrial structures, than they can by lending it on residential properties. And, as a result, a higher percentage of the money is going into commercial and industrial properties, and a smaller percentage than usual is going into residential.

HESS: Should that be rectified? Could that be changed to make more money flow into residential housing?

DIVERS: I think it will take care of itself because the indications are that the volume of money to be spent on plant improvements by industry in

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1970 is going down and will probably be less than in 1969. The commercial portion includes high rise buildings with apartments in and so on and so forth which adds to the housing supply. And, it's really been the one-family home market that has suffered over the course of the last eighteen months as a result of the shortage of money. But, I think that this will begin to ease up. This money has to--the money that goes into housing, into single-family homes, has to come from some place, and the Government can't print the money and supply it because that would just create more inflation and we would be worse off than we have been the last year or two with an attack of inflation. So, the money has to come from savings, really. And during the course of the last two years the savings have people haven't, have not been putting as much money into the savings banks, savings accounts, and savings and loan associations,

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and savings accounts in commercial banks as they had been before.

HESS: Why?

DIVERS: Well, the reasons, so far as we know are these: That they've been taking money that would ordinarily go into savings accounts, and in 1968, and the early part of 1969, were putting it in the stock market. And since the middle of 1969, they've been investing it in United States Government bonds, corporate bonds, short term obligations of Government agencies where they could get 8 percent or more instead of the maximum of 5 percent that they might get from savings institutions.

HESS: Do you think that inflation may have eaten up a good deal of that, what at one time they might have placed in a savings bank, now has to be spent at the grocery store perhaps.

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DIVERS: No, I don't think so. I've just read an article last night in U.S. News and World Report to the effect that we've had inflation, but the people still have a higher standard of living than they had five years ago or ten years ago, that there are more cars per family, and more color television sets, and stereos and things like that that we hadn't heard of ten years ago probably. I guess that the air conditioning is going on at a great pace. The country will be all air conditioned I suppose before long so that I don't think that inflation has eaten it up at all.

HESS: What could be done to draw more money into the savings market?

DIVERS: I don't know. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board recently has authorized savings and loan associations to pay a higher rate on savings.

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Where the maximum that they could pay under any conditions in 1969 was 5-1/4 percent, they now may put up to 7-1/2 percent on certain types of accounts. This appears to be attracting some money and--but it was--these higher rates were only authorized less than a month ago, so it's too early to tell.

There's one other thing that the National Association of Homebuilders are pressing at the present time, and apparently will get some consideration by Congress, and it's a variation of a plan that has been tried and tried successfully, by a number of other countries; Germany, England, Brazil and other South American countries, and that's to make savings, make the income from a certain amount of savings, or a certain amount of dollars that are income from savings, tax exempt. And I think that the proposal, the latest proposal I saw was to make up to $750 in savings--in interest

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from savings accounts, tax free.

HESS: Think there is a possibility that might be passed, might be put through?

DIVERS: I think there's a possibility and that would probably do more than anything else to attract savings and to loosen up money for and I'm not sure, but what it may not be a good long term policy to encourage people to save and have a savings account. That's seven hundred and fifty dollars--I forget what that would represent as income. That must mean something like $15,000 at 5 percent, so that if people were encouraged to save, small savers, I mean that young couples--that they could get up to three thousand dollars in savings accounts and not have to pay any income tax on the income from it. I think that not only would it encourage them to save, but it would provide a wonderful bulwark

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for them to take care of any unforeseen expenses if they ran into illness or if the man lost his job temporarily or something of that kind, and it would probably prove to be maybe even a money-saver for the Government in the long run.

HESS: Next I want to introduce a subject that is very broad and we'll probably come back to from time to time, and that is the Taft-Ellender-Wagner Housing Bill and bills. But, on November 14, 1945, Robert F. Wagner and Robert A. Taft and Allen J. Ellender introduced their first housing bill. What were your views on their housing bill? Do you recall back when they first brought that out in 1945?

DIVERS: I don't recall many of the details about that bill. I think that the grand idea, the grand scheme, was that we all well-- most people in public positions recognize that there was a

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great demand for additional housing. The normal supply of housing had been shut off for five or six years. People who had men who had been in the armed services were being released by hundreds of thousands and were marrying the girl they left behind and wanted a place to live. And many of them, particularly in smaller communities, that meant a home of their own rather than doubling up with somebody else. And, in addition, there were a lot of people who had worked long hours, some with overtime, during the war, and that hadn't had things available that they could spend their extra income on so they piled it up and these people were also looking for improved housing. The Taft-Ellender-Wagner Bill, as I recall, was an attempt to aid the privately financed housing and the publicly financed housing.

HESS: One of the controversial portions of the bill,

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of course, dealt with public housing, and in our first interview we did mention the fact that Robert Taft, who was quite often regarded as an arch conservative, was supporting public housing. But also--and when we list the three men, Robert Wagner, Robert Taft and Allen Ellender, certainly Allen Ellender should also be mentioned as a conservative. Why do you think that Allen Ellender had an interest in housing, particularly public housing?

DIVERS: Well, I suspect that he had a real interest in improving the living conditions of American citizens, he probably was sold on the idea that public housing would be helpful in meeting the needs. And in addition to that, I suspect it was probably a popular political position for an important man in the Democratic Party to take.

HESS: Of course, the third man was Robert Wagner of

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New York, who was a liberal. What do you recall about Robert Wagner?

DIVERS: I don't recall much about Wagner except that he was--had always been interested in housing. I think that anyone that comes from New York City and is a politician would necessarily have to be interested in housing because, of all the problems in the world, I suppose the problem of how to house the people of New York is probably the number one problem. I think it probably will be easier to settle the Vietnam war than it will be to take care of the housing problem in New York in the long run.

HESS: On that subject, what could be done, what could be done to improve public housing. We discussed this a little bit last time. What needs to be done to improve the situation as we now see it?

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DIVERS: Well, I haven't considered this for a little while, I've been out of that field, but I think that one thing that I would recommend would be that the sites in the slums be cleared by the city government probably rather than the Housing Authority or the Redevelopment Agency which would eliminate one great delay or the bickering between the two governments locally. I would--and there is no question about the condemnation power of the city usually. They usually have it staffed and are ready to go to work in terms of acquiring property. And then I would just write that property down from whatever it cost the city, to whatever is necessary, an economic price, to build some kind of privately owned, privately financed, privately managed housing. And I don't think that it necessarily need be the type of housing or a rental which would take care of the people who formerly lived on this site.

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I think this is one of the unattainable objectives that a lot of the public housers have striven for.

I subscribe to the school that thinks that if we continue to add a substantial number of well constructed homes in convenient locations each year to our housing supply, that this is the best and quickest way of taking care of the problem rather than attempting to build--to continue to build the supply of housing for low income people in the core areas of the city. I think that that can only lead to a perpetuation of the problems that we already have and will mean a continued increase in taxes in the city and a continued flow of people from the city. But if the mayor of Washington would attempt to tear down housing in the--well he has attempted to go along with the rehabilitation or redevelopment plan, where they would tear down some existing slums and put up fashionable row houses,

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everybody screams that they are not taking care of the poor people. Actually the poor people cannot afford to pay an economic rent for the convenient areas in which they live at the present time and the--neither the Federal Government nor the local government is wealthy enough to provide all of the money that would be necessary to provide them with desirable, new housing in these locations.

There is one other thing that I must mention in terms of how to improve housing, and that is this: That the police powers of the municipalities have never been used, to my recollection, in making--in improving housing conditions. There may be one exception. I remember in Milwaukee some ten or fifteen years ago when they adopted a landlord and tenants code, and they required the landlord to put the properties in a safe and sanitary condition. And had a vigorous

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inspection system, seeing that the landlord kept the toilets operating, the heat was suitable, and so on and so forth. They also had a tenants code and the tenants were required to keep the place clean, to keep the garbage collected in covered cans and things of that kind. The tenant was also required to replace the glass that was broken in the windows in his apartment, light bulbs in the hall, and things of this kind. That seemed to work and I don't know what happened to it, whether there was a change in administration or whether it is still going on, but it's essential that you divide the responsibilities and the duties between the public as represented by the city, and the landlord, and the tenants, because it doesn't make any difference how much the Federal Government or the local city government tries to improve housing conditions, if they can't get the cooperation

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of the tenants and the landlords, they're never going to get anyplace. And they could get the cooperation of the tenant and not have the landlord's cooperation and they're out of luck. They could get the cooperation of the landlord and if the tenant ignores them, why, they can't do much.

HESS: When you do have urban renewal that tears down the housing in an area where the low income people live and then you build back more expensive housing than those people could move into, such as we have in southwest Washington here, just where are you going to move the people that were there, though? Doesn't this create social problems in other sections of the city when they have to move into a crowded area?

DIVERS: Well, it would if no other housing were being provided anyplace else in the city or if

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there were no vacancies anyplace else in the city. But the whole--I mean the whole history of our country has been one of moving up or down depending upon your income and as incomes have gone up, people have tried to get into better accommodations. And as people move into better accommodations, they leave satisfactory accommodations behind them for people who have lesser incomes who are gradually moving up. So, that in my opinion, it's primarily a question of the overall housing supply in the city. And, in addition to that, it doesn't seem reasonable to me for the Federal Government to go into an area down in southwest Washington and build housing units that cost $25,000 a unit and the Federal Government foots the entire bill of the cost of construction, and requires that the local government charge enough to cover the cost of maintenance of the housing and any taxes that are paid.

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And now, in addition to having the Federal Government supply the entire cost of this housing, they are also proposing that the Federal Government pay part of the maintenance in order to reduce the rent. Now, it seems inequitable to me for the Federal Government to do this for somebody who has an income of $3,000 a year and not do a damn thing for the person who has an income of $4,000 or $5,000. And I would prefer, really, to see that the local government, if they had to, rent private dwellings and put relief families in and insist on them taking care of those places.

HESS: Now, one reason I wanted to bring that up is because of the objection and the comment that we both have heard many times from the--by some of the civil rights workers that urban renewal is actually Negro removal.

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DIVERS: Well, I've heard that, but I don't think it's true. I know up to the present time, I know that here in Washington for example, that they've built a lot more dwellings on the lot where they rebuilt, they built a lot more than they took off, because they took off one or two story buildings and built high-rises. In addition to that they built--they have purchased apartment houses in formerly all white neighborhoods and put Negroes in there so that . . .

HESS: Out on Connecticut Avenue.

DIVERS: Out on Connecticut Avenue so that I would certainly think that efforts to rebuild downtown Washington should not be stopped if it results in industrial properties which provide jobs, office buildings to house the many workers that come into the city; facilities for them in the way of restaurants, stores, and all the things

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that are needed. Or housing for some of the people who want to live downtown. After all there are quite a few Negroes that you might classify as upper income and middle income here at the present time and they certainly could live in these places, in addition to any white people who want to move in.

The same civil rights workers who are complaining about this are urging the Federal Government and the local government to spend a hell of a lot of money on busses to take white people into--the white children into Negro neighborhoods and put them into schools in Negro neighborhoods and I can't understand their reasoning, if they object to white people living in these presently Negro neighborhoods.

HESS: And moving on, in December of 1945 Mr. John Blandford appointed you as Assistant Administrator of the National Housing Agency and your

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base of operation was shifted from Chicago to Washington. Correct?

DIVERS: That's correct.

HESS: What was your main job? What were your duties?

DIVERS: Well, I took over the duties of Coleman Woodbury, who was my predecessor in that office. And we had two assistant administrators as I recall. One of them was Lew [Lewis E.] Williams, who directed the business end of the organization, you might say, and I was the assistant administrator for policy and for planning, legislation, and generally speaking you might say the housing policies and programs of the Government.

HESS: When did you first meet Mr. John Blandford?

DIVERS: I first met him shortly after he was appointed as National Housing Administrator which was back in 1940, '41.

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HESS: '42. He was from Cincinnati. Did you know him in Cincinnati?

DIVERS: I had never met him in Cincinnati, but . . ,

HESS: He was director of public safety from '31 to '33, at the same time that you were assistant prosecuting attorney.

DIVERS: That's right and . . .

HESS: Of course, you held a county post.

DIVERS: Yes. And before that I think that he had been with Municipal Bureau or . . .

HESS.: Cincinnati Bureau of Governmental Research.

DIVERS: Cincinnati Bureau of Governmental Research.

HESS: From 1926 to '31.

DIVERS: Right. No, I don't if I met him down there I didn't remember him and, of course, we

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had mutual friends and we found out one very unusual thing later on when I became better acquainted with him, and that was that he and his wife when they were in Cincinnati, when he was safety director, he lived at 2222 Auburn Avenue, and when he moved out my mother and father moved in. So, we were both quite familiar with this delightful old home there in Cincinnati.

HESS: What kind of a man was he?

DIVERS: Well, he still is . . .

HESS: Still is.

DIVERS: He still is the kind of man he was. He's .

HESS: Do you know whether . . .

DIVERS: I saw him not long ago.

HESS: Do you know where he lives?

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DIVERS: No, I don't.

HESS: Does he live around here?

DIVERS: Yes, he lives in the Washington area. And I'm glad you asked about him because I should get in touch with him. John Blandford in my opinion was--was and is, a very able man. He was a trained public administrator. He has a good sense of humor. He never took himself too seriously and he recognized that the world and the Government would go on even though John Blandford might not. He made a serious effort to recruit a non-political staff which was relatively easy to do during the war. I mean you could ignore the politicians; they really went underground for the first few years of the war. And he was hard-working, very intelligent, and quite able in diagnosing the housing problems of the Government during wartime and meeting those

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problems. I think he's a very able administrator and wonderful man.

HESS: Why did he leave in 1946?

DIVERS: I don't think that he left really. I think he was kind of eased out.

HESS: Why? And by whom?

DIVERS: Well, I really don't know. I was quite close to him at that time and I think that possibly that some people in Government may have felt that the--that housing was a major issue, and they may have been looking for somebody who was more dynamic to lead the fight for housing. I think they probably were mistaken in their appraisal of the situation, but I don't know who was responsible. It could have been the homebuilders. They might have had something to do with it, although he seemed

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to get along well with them. Do you know?

HESS: No. But, would the homebuilders really want someone brought in who was more dynamic, more of a boatrocker?

DIVERS: Well the homebuilders . . .

HESS: Now, what I had in mind is what they got was Wilson Wyatt, and I don't think they particularly liked that did they?

DIVERS: They loved him at first. They--and actually Wyatt did a lot for the homebuilders. You want to remember we're still talking about this time when materials were tight, particularly the materials. And the homebuilders needed help from the Government in order to get materials and Wyatt made some--made a big enough fuss in certain circles that the builders could get enough nails and things like this to at least get

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started on this big post-World War II housing program.

HESS: He was brought in as Housing Expediter in December of 1945. Just what circles did he have to create a fuss in to get a little action out of? Who were the bottlenecks? Mr. Truman told him to break the bottlenecks.

DIVERS: Well, as I recall, it was a fight between the housing industry and other industries over the limited supply of material.

The War Production Board or its successor was very much interested in getting factories built, factories reconverted to provide jobs, and I have already described the great demand for housing at that time. And I think that we ought to recognize that probably it's not unlike today when there are--when the demand is greater than the supply and I think it was just a question

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at that time that the demand for materials was greater than the supply and the question of how they were going to be allocated. Well, they had all of the industries on one side and the housing industry on the other and it was not too much unlike Don Quixote tilting at the windmill.

HESS: Now John D. Small who was Chief of the Civilian Production Agency. How did he and Mr. Wyatt hit it off?

DIVERS: Well, on the surface they were friendly and they were cooperative.

HESS: Only on the surface?

DIVERS: I would think so. I don't think that their their friendship didn't last long and I think that after they were both in office for about sixty days that they were trying to get each other replaced.

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HESS: That we will go into a little later, but let's go back and discuss Mr. Wyatt just a little bit. What had been his background?

DIVERS: Well, he's from Louisville, Kentucky where he had been mayor as I recall, and dynamic, sparkling individual, with a great amount of energy. A very personable individual. A very poor administrator.

HESS: Why do you say that?

DIVERS: Well, I say that because he didn't know how to organize his office or organize his time and I think he also used poor judgment in making a lot of decisions that he did.

HESS: Such as?

DIVERS: Well, one thing was his staff. I mean that he had he went to the colleges to get about half of his staff and the men he hired were

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long on theory and short on experience, and came up with some of the most impractical answers that you could ever imagine. Let me just mention one of them. There was a shortage of plywood at the time and most of the doors--many of the doors-- were made of plywood or partially made from plywood. And so, one of these professors got the bright idea that what we'd do would be just let the builders have three doors for each house. They'd have a front door, a back door and a door on the bathroom--on one bathroom and they could get along without a cellar door--door down to the basement--let the kids fall if they wanted to. And they could--if they had two baths, why, they could--they'd have to do with a door only on one, and they didn't have any on the closets; didn't have any on sleeping rooms, so on and so forth. Well, the result was that they were only going to manufacture front doors and back doors and a limited number of doors

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for bathrooms. And the builders just took the doors and cut them down to fit whatever purposes they need, any one they could get their hands on, and the shortage of doors was about ten times as great; whereas I think that somebody who was practical would have looked into the bottlenecks of the materials that went into the doors, the bottlenecks that confronted the manufacturers of doors, and would try to have increased the supply of other materials that was being made available for housing. But--they did all sorts of--all sorts of silly decisions and things that were--and they'd make these decisions and sell them to Wyatt without ever discussing them with anybody who had ever built a house.

HESS: Who do you recall as being one of those who may have offered some of this type of advice?

DIVERS: Well, I don't remember their names even.

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HESS: Well, the list of . . .

DIVERS: I've never seen them since hardly.

HESS: No, let's see if they were on the list of special assistants. I took this off of the organizational chart. You were the first special assistant, Judson Hannigan was the second, David Kadane, Nathaniel Keith and Robert Sevey. Any of those?

DIVERS: No. None of those were in . . .

HESS: Do you recall anything about those gentlemen?

DIVERS: Oh, I remember them. Nat Keith is still in town here and he's still active in the housing field. And Hannigan, I don't know what happened to him, but I think he went with the Army or someplace. He was kind of in charge of public relations I would say. Kadane was not

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there long. I mean he came in late as I recall and he was I think he was the one who was in charge of the material. And . . .

HESS: S-e-v-e-y.

DIVERS: Sevey.

HESS: Robert Sevey.

DIVERS: He was a kind of a deputy to Wyatt and he didn't know anything.

HESS: And also Leon Keyserling was there as general counsel.

DIVERS: Yes, Keyserling was there.

HESS: Who had recommended Mr. Wyatt for the position?

DIVERS: I don't have the slightest idea.

Let me say this, that I was very much interested in housing--always have been, and I

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recognized that this was a very critical problem at this particular time. Shortly after Wyatt was appointed, he asked me if I wanted to stay on in the housing field and I told him, "Yes "

He said, "Well, what would you particularly like to do?"

And I said, "Well, as I see it, about 98 percent of the total housing supply has been supplied with private funds and private builders, and so on, and less than 2 percent of it is public, but I think that that will go on during this postwar period. I don't think Congress is going to (they were cutting the budget right and left at that time), and I don't think they're going to provide a lot of funds." I don't think they should. I think that the people who have the money to do it should be entitled to the first crack at this--these short materials.

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So, I said, "I would like to be your representative with the private building and private housing interests."

And he said, "That's fine." He said, "I hadn't thought of that before, but they ought to be represented on my staff and ought to have a place where they can come and so on."

So, my contacts were with the National Association of Homebuilders, the savings and loan people who were providing most of the money for this at the time, plus the mutual savings banks. And the National Association of Real Estate Boards, because we had programs to improve the existing housing supply as well as to build new houses and so on. So, this was the job and I took with me from the Housing Agency, a man named John Sink, and John and I had offices together and were the two people who represented private business you might say, in that whole

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catacomb of offices down there.

HESS: Did you find your duties as a representative of private business an arduous one in this atmosphere?

DIVERS: Yes, we had almost daily arguments with other people on the staff who were primarily interested in public housing, public accommodations of one kind or another, and who seemed to be interested in getting any materials that were needed, for these reasons and so on so that--yes we did--and I think we probably did our job to the satisfaction of private industry in such a way that we didn't have many friends on the staff when we parted, no lasting friendships anyway except with Sink and I. I mean we worked together all the time.

Wyatt almost became the--almost became the biggest man in Washington. He almost became

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presidential candidate caliber, shall I say.

HESS: Do you think he had that in mind?

DIVERS: Oh, yes. I'm sure that he would have been very happy to have been tapped for one of the top jobs; President or Vice President. He certainly had politics in mind. He made speeches at any time he was invited, wherever he was.

HESS: Do you think that he may have had it in mind to try to do an excellent job on this particular project to use it as a jumping-off point for his political ambitions?

DIVERS: Well, I think that he had that in mind, but at the same time, I would also not discount his desire to perform a public service. I mean that he his intentions were good and certainly he worked hard and long hours. He did the best he could, but I think he went the wrong direction sometimes.

I can't help comparing him with Blandford. Blandford had no aspirations other than to perform the best job that he could for the Government--for the people of the United States

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and I think that he--and he was so much better in terms of being an administrator. Now, I had arguments when I was on Blandford's staff and we used to sit up until 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning sometimes and be screaming at each other. But this was--but the next day we were all back at work and all working together and we recognized the abilities, we recognized the objectivities of the other staff members, and we used to push our own views without fear of retribution, you might say. That was an entirely different atmosphere than it was in Wyatt's shop where most people seemed to be pressing their own position fox their own selfish reasons, for reasons of promotion and things of that kind, or for reasons of being the current favorite, the office favorite, rather than for purposes of getting ahead with the job. And there didn't seem to be any cohesiveness--one

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month why, somebody would be the favorite and he practically giving orders to everybody else in the organization and the next month it would be somebody entirely different.

HESS: It's almost 12 o'clock, did you have a lunch appointment?

DIVERS: I do, yes.

HESS: All right then, let's shut it off.