Book Review

Just finished reading "Jerome Hunsaker and the Rise in American Aeronautics" by  William Trimble.   For somewhat of an academic work, it was pretty readable, and even though I've read pretty extensively in the aviation history genre, it did provide some new insight.

For one, the book is largely the story of the birth and adolescence of the Military-Industrial complex.  While Trimble is very complimentary to his subject, after getting into the book a bit you can't help but notice the cozy relationships between Hunsaker, his work at NACA, industry and the military.

I picked up the book largely because I have seen Hunsaker referenced in so many of the other things I've read about the early years of aviation and aerospace.  He was Donald Douglas' mentor at MIT, did a lot of work in the early days of naval aviation, and laid the footprint for the massive research efforts in WWII and beyond.

So always seeing him mentioned as a side note, it was interesting to see just who he was.  A talented engineer, but more than that he was a talented technocrat who knew how to work the growing labyrinth of government and business relations.  Things that today would land someone in jail for conflicts of interest and "double dipping" were just the way things were done.

We tend to lionize our technological heroes, taking them out of the context in which they worked.  And as often as not, they were the beneficiaries of the same methods of skirting the edge of propriety that we see today.  You don't have to get too far into Hunsaker's steering of contracts, consulting for industry when he was with NACA, maneuvering himself into promotions into created positions, etc. to see that he pretty much wrote the book of how to succeed in the burgeoning world of aerospace and government.

It's almost painful to read about the millions (billions in today's dollars) that was thrown around in the early days of the Cold War.  Because now we're broke.  But we - as a government and society - did create some monsters back then that we are still dealing with.

I make no political or personal judgement here about Jerome Hunsaker.  Like any other historical figure who gets a biography written, he was a product of his time and deserves to be seen in that light, not the way we'd see these things now.  He was obviously an intelligent and talented man.  It's always interesting to me to see how things were done in years past, and the book provides not only a biography of a man but of an industry.

And I got it on remainder, so it was a cheap peek behind the curtain of how things got to be the way they are!