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30 If it was an attempt at a plant, it was certainly crude. The mention of his former Air Force connection would be enough to arouse suspicion, unless he counted on his apparent 7. a ne 7 aoe And what about the Press Club angle? That would indicate Steele was a newspaperman. Could this be merely an attempt to pump me and get a lead on True's investigation? But that would be just as crude as the other idea. Of course, he might be sincere. But regardless of his motives, it looked bad. Arid who had told him about me? I thought about that for a minute. Then I picked up the phone and dialed Jack Daly's number. {p. 34} newspaperman." I explained, and added, "I thought maybe you knew him, and he'd heard about it from you." "It wouldn't be a tip--I don't know anything about this deal yet. By the way, when you were on the Star did you handle anything on ‘foo fighters'?" I told him I would look it up in the Star's morgue. Jack said he would meet me there at three o'clock; in the meantime he would see what he could find out about Steele. Jack was a little late, and I went over the Star's file on the foo fighters. Most of the facts were covered in a story dated July 6, 1947, which had been inspired by the outbreak of the saucer scare. I copied it for later use: During the latter part of World War Two, fighter pilots in England were convinced that Hitler had a new secret weapon. Yanks dubbed these devices "foo fighters" or "Kraut fireballs." One of the Air Force Intelligence men now assigned to check on the saucer scare was an officer who investigated statements of military airmen that circular foo fighters were seen over Europe and also on the bombing wank ae Toe route to Japan. frankness to offset it. "Jack, do you know anyone named John Steele?" I asked him. "I think he's a "Nobody I know," said Jack. "Why, what's up?" "Hell, no," said Jack. "You ought to know I wouldn't leak any tip like that." "No, that was after I left there. Bill Shippen would have covered that, anyway."