Excerpts of the President's News Conference

I don't know of any plan to increase the scope of the proposed aviation board to include not only the Navy but the Army, or a civilian membership. What I am particularly interested in here is the relative value between aviation, surface vessels and submarines. That is pretty purely a naval question. I haven't had a chance to talk or discuss it with the Secretary of War [Weeks], I shall want to do that. My own impression is that perhaps this could be handled by the general Navy board by their taking advantage of any testimony that they could secure from the Army. It may be that it would be desirable to join the Army as a member of the board. But my first impression is that that wouldn't be necessary; that they could get all the information that the Army might have through testimony from the Army, and keep the two services separate as they are now. But I shall want to talk with the Secretary of War about that before making a decision. The aviation situation was not discussed at the Cabinet meeting this morning. None of the members of the Cabinet had anything to bring before the meeting, so it was very short.