henry kaiser's shipyard churned out a liberty ship in a record four and a half days.that's faster than most of my students can write one of their semester papers. this undergirded american military strategy of using weapons and technology to thoroughly pummeled the enemy before a single american soldier was sent into battle. the war also exposed the fact that japan, which adopted some of the capitalistic production methods in america, lacked the essential powers of exceptionalism to employ them fully in wartime. without free speech, free markets, constitutional protection that about great inventors and businessmen to try new ideas and fail without punishment, japan fell behind the u.s. almost instantly. in four years of war, the u.s. produced 17 fleet carriers. japan, one. we go into, for example, two guys viewed as failures our at least not very successful guys, and that would be andrew jackson higgins, who produced an incredible number of craft, landing craft, but after the war was kind of out of business, but especially we look at people like howard hughes. howard

that could have been written for jeff bingaman by henry kaiser. this has been jeff bingaman's both owe for the last 30 years. he is not one for flashy press conferences. he is really most of the time too busy getting things done. jeff learned humility in the small town of silver city, new mexico, where he tbriew up. his father was a professor. his mom a teacher. they instilled in him a love and appreciation for education, and that is an understatement. he got his bachelor's degree at harvard, his law degree from stanford. mr. president, those are the two -- two of the finest educational institutions in the world, and he has a degree from both of them, harvard and stanford. at stanford where he is going to law school, he met his wonderful wife ann. i have such warmth for this woman. we have traveled together. i can remember trips we took on senate codels. she was always the life of the party. she was a great match for jeff. jeff being quiet, subdued. ann not always so. i love them both. ann is a political powerhouse in her own right. she served thr