Free The Pentagon: A History by Steve Vogel Page A

does not commit himself on the proposition” until the planned building’s impact on traffic, water supply, sewers, and the like was studied.
    Smith’s request went unheeded. Somervell’s proposal was reaching the president at an opportune time, as Roosevelt had concluded that America likely could not avoid war with Nazi Germany. Earlier that month the president had agreed to take over the defense of Iceland from Britain, a decision of “first-rate political and strategic importance,” in the estimation of Winston Churchill, the British prime minister. Roosevelt biographer James MacGregor Burns later wrote that “If ever there was a point when Roosevelt knowingly crossed some threshold between aiding Britain in order to stay out of war and aiding Britain by joining in the war, July 1941 was probably the time.”
    When the proposal was raised during the cabinet meeting July 24, Roosevelt breezily approved the building, to the secretary’s relief. Later that afternoon, Stimson sent a letter to Woodrum, who was awaiting word: “In response to your inquiry I am authorized by the President to advise you that he has approved the construction of the proposed War Department building at Arlington Farms. I may say that an urgent need exists for this building, and I hope that we may have the approval of the Congress for it at an early date.”
    In exactly one week, Somervell had proposed constructing a building of unprecedented size and scale, produced preliminary plans out of thin air, won the strong support of the War Department leadership including a skeptical secretary of war, sold it to key Congressional leaders, and received a green light from the president of the United States. Nothing, it seemed, could stop him.

    Lebensraum

    On July 24, 1941, the same day that Roosevelt approved the new building, Representative Merlin Hull, the seventy-year-old Progressive Party member and dean of the Wisconsin delegation to the House, sat at his desk on the floor, looking over House Resolution 5412, a bill just reported by the Appropriations Committee. The House of Representatives had convened at noon that day to consider the $8 billion supplemental spending request for national defense, including money to boost the Army’s size by 300,000 to 1.7 million soldiers. Routine passage was expected.
    Hull’s eye stopped at the last item listed in HR 5412. On chapter 03, under the heading “War Department, civil functions, Quartermaster Corps,” there was an authorization for the construction of a new War Department building across the Potomac River, to cost $35 million. Hull was astonished. It was an enormous amount of money for a single building. It was also against congressional rules. Woodrum had added the $35 million to the appropriation bill as a rider, but the legislation should have originated with the Committee of Public Buildings and Grounds. To get around this inconvenience, Woodrum had enlisted the aid of Representative Fritz Lanham, the Texas Democrat who chaired the buildings committee. Lanham’s committee had met the day before and unanimously agreed to support the measure and ignore the fact that there was no authorization act.
    Now Lanham took the House floor to sing the building’s praises and to urge Congress to lay aside the rules. “I doubt if, during the many years I have served on the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, a more practical, feasible and sensible building project has been presented to us than this particular one,” he said. “It is not to be a monumental building, ornate in its details, but a permanent workshop on Government-owned land.”
    Hull, for one, was not going to stand for it. He was known as a stickler for rules and for his diligence, never missing a committee meeting and almost always on the House floor for roll calls. When the House clerk read the last paragraph of the bill—the one for the building’s construction—Hull raised a point of order: The paragraph was unauthorized