Free The Pentagon: A History by Steve Vogel Page B

legislation.
    Woodrum was in a bind. Hull was correct, he responded, but the matter was too important to be stopped by a technicality. “Nothing that we could do in this bill or anywhere else would give such an impetus to the efficiency of our defense program as to be able to get the War Department under one roof in order that they may attend to the business for which we are appropriating these large sums,” Woodrum said.
    Hull would not budge. This building was too big. “It is sufficient to build four capitol buildings the size of the one we are now working in, so I am going to insist on my point of order,” he said. Woodrum had no choice but to postpone the bill until the Rules Committee could consider the matter. The entire $8 billion defense supplemental bill was on hold.
    The cat was now out of the bag. For the press and for Washington, the contretemps was the first word of what was being planned. Even within the War Department, few knew about it; high officials approached by reporters that day said they had never heard of the project. The War Department hurriedly put out a press release late in the day announcing that the president and secretary of war had approved construction of a new building to house the entire department. “It is believed that it will constitute the largest office building in the world,” the release said, taking pains to emphasize the spartan nature of the project: “The building will be strictly utilitarian in character and will be devoid of facilities except those relating directly to the business functions of the War Department.”
    The Evening Star hit the streets with the news that night, and all the papers ran big stories the following morning. The Washington Post called it “a 35 million dollar ‘dream’ building” and ran a big illustration showing Red Stathes’s rendition of the odd-shaped structure. The Washington Daily News described it as a “proposal to carpet 67 acres of Virginia farmland with brick and concrete” and sardonically referred to the War Department’s need for Lebensraum. The Arlington County manager confessed to being “dizzy” at the prospect of a single building housing almost as many people as the rest of the county.
    None of the planning agencies that had say over such projects had been consulted. Nor had anyone with the Arlington County government been notified. The Star was shocked. “The $35,000,000 War Department building project planned for Arlington County, Va., is so staggering in its proportions as to be difficult to grasp on short notice,” the paper editorialized, adding that “surely Congress will not adopt so far-reaching and revolutionary a project” without review by the proper agencies.
    But that was precisely the intention. On Friday morning, Woodrum appeared before the House Rules Committee to report that Roosevelt and Stimson were urging quick congressional approval. The committee voted to recommend that the rules be waived and the $35 million appropriation be attached to the bill.
    When the House reconsidered the matter on Monday, Hull was not ready to concede. “This proposition is so staggering, so astounding, that if my point of order did nothing more, it served to give the Congress and at least some of the press an opportunity to consider what was being brought in here under the guise of national defense,” he told the House. It seemed to him that before approving a building comparable in cost to and greater in size than “the great Empire State Building…the House at least ought to have the opportunity to learn more about what the proposition really means.” The cost, Hull warned, might be twice the $35 million estimated by the War Department.
    Others took up the cry, incredulous that the War Department was again seeking a new building. “Think of it—after two months of occupancy of the present building they find that it is too small and they want to go somewhere else,” said Representative Robert Rich, a