How He Was Sacked

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 782, 1 October 1929, Page 9

How He Was Sacked

SHEARER AND SHIPBUILDERS Called Him German Spy ACTIVITIES AT GENEVA PARLEY ( United P.A .— By Telegraph—Copyright ! (Australian and N.Z. Press AssociatioiiJ (United Scri'iceJ Received 11 a.lll. WASHINGTON. Monday. TELLING the Senate Investigating Committee how his contract with the big American shipbuilders ended abruptly, William B. Shearer, who was their observer at the 1927 tripartite naval disarmament conference at Geneva, said they had accused him of being a German spy. “England has enough on you to hang you,” one of his employers was alleged to have said.

The committee is investigating the suspected destructive activities of the shipbuilding corporations in breaking down the naval conference. Shearer said in evidence that no member of the American delegation had wished to see the parley end in failure, and he did not claim that he had broken up the gathering. “Do you know of any one of our representatives who worked against arriving at any agreement?” asked the chairman, Senator Samuel M. Shortridge. “Only one.' He introduced a political clause which was for another naval building holiday,” Shearer answered, without giving that person’s name. Shearer said he himself was for an American programme for parity with the British Navy; that if he had not been so, he would have been with the British, who wanted 750,000 tons of cruisers. Agreeing with Senator Shortridge that he used his brains and ability to

get out the facts, Shearer said he also used one other thing, that was naval intelligence data, giving the proposed plans of Britain and Japan, what they would attempt to do at the conference, and what actually they did. Shearer told how his contract with the shipbuilders ended abruptly, saying: "Clinton L. Bardo came down here i and reported that Secretary Kellogg had called tne Bethlehem Company on the carpet, and told them to get rid of me, or the Department of Justice would open the Government’s 15,000,000 dollars suit of 1910 against the Bethlehem Steel Company.” Shearer said that Bardo, who is president of the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, once declared: “Wakeman has told us about the Kellogg incident, and has said you are a German spy, and that England has enough on you to hang you.” The Wakeman referred to is vicepresident of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.