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111 chapter eight Personal Representative of the President Although it was light, the September sun had not yet risen over the mountains surrounding Clarksburg. “Good morning, Colonel Johnson,” said the elevator operator as the large, trim, balding man stepped on. Not another word was spoken as they rode to the tenth ¶oor of the Union Bank Building, the¶oor entirely occupied by the ¤rm of Steptoe & Johnson. It was six o’clock, and as usual Louis Johnson was the ¤rst one at work. Within two hours the of¤ce would be alive with activity as the ¤rm’s two dozen lawyers arrived to work on a variety of complex legal problems and litigation for some of the largest corporations in America. In the meantime, however, Johnson would have time to himself in his large of¤ce in the northwest corner. After lighting his ¤rst cigar of the day, he ¤nished the job of reading the morning newspapers—a task generally started at the breakfast table. He had always devoured newspapers and news magazines, but since leaving government service he did so even more closely as he followed events and people in the nation’s capital that he knew so well. That particular September 1940 morning he felt a sense of pride as he read that Congress had just passed the Burke-Wadsworth Selective Service Act—a measure he had advocated two years before.1 Johnson was also pleased to read that morning that Wendell Wilkie, the Republican who wasrunning against FDR,was not goingtoobjecttothe destroyersfor -bases deal that had just been announced by the White House and that ¤fty of the desperately needed warships would be on their way to England just as the Luftwaffe was commencing massive bombing raids on London. As a lawyer and 112 louis johnson and the arming of america a recent insider, Johnson had to admire the brilliant legal work of his future nemesis, Dean Acheson, who with his co-author Ben Cohen arranged to publish in the New York Times a legal analysis which gave the president a way to bypass Congress on the destroyer deal.2 Putting aside his newspapers, Johnson began his daily review of the cases, transactions, and matters they were currently working on. Frequently, he would call one of the lawyers in to discuss strategy or potential problems on a particular case. Since Philip Steptoe had retired to his farm in 1934, Johnson had become completely responsible for the growing group of lawyers he had assembled. Fortunately , when he went to the War Department in 1937 he was able to call on partners like James Guiher and Stanley Morris to step in and oversee operations, but even when he served in government Johnson was kept well aware of what was going on and he retained ¤nal say on signi¤cant issues affecting the ¤rm, including who was or was not hired. As in the past, Johnson did not do the legal work. He brought in virtually all of the business and tended to the care and feeding of the ¤rm’s clients. Heading the prestigious law ¤rm was ¤nancially rewarding and a task which Johnson thoroughly enjoyed, but something seemed to be missing.3 Johnson had had three solid years of daily interaction with powerful people such as the president of the United States; the secretaries of state, treasury, and war; and the army chief of staff and chief of the aircorps. He had appeared before House and Senate committees, made speeches before large and in¶uential groups, and inspected military bases and production facilities throughout the nation. He still spent a great deal of time in Washington and New York developing business for the ¤rm, but no matter how pleasant his life in Clarksburg was, there was bound to be a letdown, especially to a man with a tremendous ego and enormous ambition. Keeping in Touch By early October Johnson was becoming restless. He could not forget what he had left behind in the nation’s capital. He kept in close contact with what was happening in the White House through Steve Early, in the State Department through Adolf Berle and Sumner Welles, and in the War Department through Colonel James Burns. He also kept in touch with Generals Marshall and Arnold but primarily on a social basis, and it was to his credit that he made no attempt to offer advice on war department activities.4 The only special consideration he asked of his former colleagues was when...

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