The president asserted that he had been a firm supporter of the construction of United States to promote international commerce and national defense, but the United States Lines, he argued, had benefited from these “construction subsidies, tax benefits, and other privileges accorded by the Merchant Marine Act” for too long, and special legislation to amend excessive subsidies was needed to bring the company to heel.14
He then told the press, “I deplore this attitude on the part of the company… the government is not helpless in this matter.”15
A happy Warren read the president’s letter and wrote back immediately. “I am pleased and in strong accord with your letter of June 20, 1952,” he chirped. “I shall be happy to confer with the Attorney General at any time he wishes.”16
Sawyer did not respond. By the twenty-first, he was aboard United States, bound for New York. Just before moving into his stateroom, he again said to a Newport News reporter that the contract was “binding and unchangeable,” adding, “No other passenger ship ever built is so beautiful, so fast, so safe, so useful.”17
But the argument was not over. Later in June, Attorney General McGranery would issue the Justice Department’s opinion: the government would punish the United States Lines by withholding two operating subsidy payments, not to exceed $10,000,000, the amount the White House said the United States Lines owed the government. Truman liked McGranery’s opinion.18
General Franklin told the press that the line welcomed an inquiry, and that the United States Lines was “ready and willing to cooperate fully with the Attorney General.”19 But he could not back down. He knew that without these subsidy agreements as written in the original contract, his company could not afford to run United States as expected by the Navy and by a fickle traveling public.
As the Big Ship slipped out of Hampton Roads on June 21, 1952, William Francis Gibbs barricaded himself in his suite. He had left his name off the passenger list and planned to evade all strangers who wanted to congratulate him. For him the delivery voyage was not a time for cocktails, but for double-checking the ship’s mechanical systems and giving tours to a few, high-ranking officials. Vera, who had been with her husband in Newport News, went by train back to New York. She would join the ship and her husband on July 3 for the maiden voyage. Gala occasions were her element, and she looked forward to cocktails and laughter in the luminous Navajo lounge. She knew her husband would be on the bridge with Commodore Manning for the entire first crossing. Gibbs would be there because he suspected Manning might push the ship too fast, against the company’s clear instruction.
One important player decided not to take part in the upcoming maiden voyage, with its social events and media circus. Frederic Gibbs planned to stay at home in his bachelor flat and follow the newspaper reports. Besides, someone had to run the firm, and Frederic was the only person his brother really trusted.
23. THE NEW SEA QUEEN ARRIVES
As United States entered New York harbor for the first time on June 23, 1952, she was greeted by a cacophony of hooting tugs and spraying fireboats. Planes and helicopters carrying newsreel cameramen whizzed over the tops of her funnels and her radar mast.
From the skyscraper at 21 West Street, a giant banner hung from the windows: WELCOME UNITED STATES, GIBBS & COX, INC.”1 Not since 1946, when the Queen s sailed into the harbor packed with thousands of victorious troops, did the people of New York turn out in such huge numbers to greet an ocean liner.
Thousands in the crowd watching the ship come in were not content just to look at United States from afar—they had to get on that ship, if only for a couple of hours.
On June 28 at 9 A.M., the ship was opened to the public. Admission was one dollar, with the proceeds going to the Travelers Aid Society. Working the huge crowds was a teenager hawking pictures of the ship at ten cents apiece. Hot dog and ice cream vendors staked out positions along the queue, turning the sidewalk into what was described as a “summery midway.”2
From the ship’s upper decks, William Francis Gibbs looked down at the crowd with delight. “The flood began early in the morning and continued throughout the day,” he recalled. “Thousands of people came. It required the inspector to call for the reserves on three different occasions—the mounted police—and by the time the day was well on, the arrangements in front of Pier 86 looked like a Fifth Avenue parade….”3
Down on the West Side Highway, the line shuffled slowly forward, the crowds murmuring with anticipation. “I wanted to see that boat,” said Mildred Tross, one of nearly twenty-five thousand visitors waiting in a queue that stretched for eight blocks. “I wanted to see it. It’s the only way I’ll ever get to see it.” The sun beat down on the moving crowd as it inched toward Forty-Sixth Street, people’s eyes trained upward on the red, white, and blue funnels looming over pier catwalks. “Mid-westerners who never expect to cross the ocean,” the New York Times reported, “and people from all over stirred by the drama of a great ship converged yesterday on the liner United States, alongside Pier 86.”4
A taxi driver passing by the new liner pointed at her and proudly declared to his passenger: “You know this is the United States. This ship was built here. It’s our ship.”5
Deputy Chief Inspector William McQuade, the New York police officer in charge of crowd control, felt absolutely overwhelmed. Maiden arrivals at Luxury Liner Row always drew lots of curious people. But previous debuts paled compared to the crush of visitors clamoring for a chance to get a close look at the Big Ship. The men, women, and children snaking toward the United States were tangible proof of what the Times called “the drawing power of the new sea queen.”6 The sight of the big American flag fluttering from her sternpost made patriotic hearts happy, and the veil of mystery created by Gibbs about the ship had its desired effect with the general public, which had no interest in the $10 million subsidy dispute between General Franklin and President Truman.
As he stood by the gangway doors, Assistant Bell Captain Krudener knew visiting day would make extra work for the cleaning crew, but he was glad to be in New York and rid of the freeloaders. The two-day voyage from Newport News had been chaotic. “These guys,” he said, “had all the booze they wanted.” In an age when men did not walk out of their cabins without wearing a coat and tie, and rarely went in public without a hat, Krudener found his charges walking around the first-class public rooms in T-shirts and shorts. During the trip, one of the first-class elevators had broken down between decks, trapping several drunken passengers inside. To keep them happy, Krudener threw three bottles of scotch into the elevator car as the crew fixed the problem.
“They didn’t care if they ever came out,” he recalled.7
On the day of the liner’s arrival in New York, the crowd on board was not so rowdy. Still, gawking people tracked mud all over the sea-green carpet of the observation lounge and the black linoleum of Purser’s Square that the crew had scrubbed and waxed to a high shine. Someone knocked out the plug to a water main on one of the aft decks, soaking many visitors. The slow-moving line outside came to a halt as the crew replugged the main and stopped the geyser. Despite the delays, more than nineteen thousand people toured the Big Ship that day.