The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-01-17

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 Cooked up in tight backroom secrecy by Budget Director Frank Smith and his little clique of civil service bureaucrats, and sprung on the entire Defense command as bombshell out of the clear sky. the extraordinary scheme literally turned the administration inside out.
 In the eight years of the New Deal no move has ever created such inner turmoil and upheaval. From top to bottom the inner circle rocked with raging fury like a ship in typhoon. There was plenty of reason for the ex- plosion. Everything about the af- fair was in the realm of the fam taStic.
 Palmer has been under fire for months from Defense Com missioners, builders, government housing chiefs and other auth critics. Although on the job nearly six months, housing for tens of thousands of civilian defense workers all over the country still is a total blank.
 Several weeks ago, with the q. t. aid of William McReynolds, Civil Service Secretary of the De- fense Commission and one of the Budget Bureau clique, Palmer att tempted to ease himself out from under the control of the Defense Commission = and free of the increasing rain of brickbats and complaints. This maneuver was blocked and a quiet move started to get rid of him entirely.
 Last Saturday plans were set in motion within the cOmmis- sion to go to Roosevelt when he returned from Hyde Park and recommend that Palmer be re- placed. The boys were too late. The chicken already had flown the coop.
 PALACE COUP
 Unknown to anyone, Palmer and his bureaucratic pals, after they were rebuffed in the commission, had cooked up an executive order making him an independent de- fense agency and had got Roose- welt to sign it. Neither the Big Four" defense chiefs, the Defense Commission, nor anyone else out side of the little clique had the slightest inkling of the order.
 When it was announced at Hyde Park on Sunday afternoon it stunned the Capital. The inside word had been that Palmer was on the way out. AS a result of the palace coup" he now was not only more powerful than before, but on an equal footing with De- fense Director General Knudsen and his three associates, who everyone supposed were to be the supreme rulers of the defense pro- gram.
 It was a slick coup, but it had one weakness. It was too slick. Palmer and his bureaucratic pals overreached themselves, stepped on too many important toes. He will not long enjoy his tri- umph.
 NOTE = This is the second in- stance in the last few weeks when an inner clique tried to put over 8 fast one. When the executive orders for the super defense board were being drafted, John Biggers and Fred Eaton, dollar-a-year heutenants of Knudsen, wrote them in such a manner as to take power away from Associate Dl- rector Sidney Hillman.
 Knudsen knew nothing about this scheme. Neithers did any one else except Biggers, big glass manufacturers, Eaton, Wall Street lawyer, and Budget Di- rector Smiths bureaucratic clique. However, there was one leak and that blew up the scheme.
 A legal lieutenant of Hillman demanded a copy of the secret order and when 1t was refused went direct to the White House, which directed that it be produced. rrI.oE nx,lad fIa vu0aIId.hn nnIIn