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I'm sure we have no idea how many times big things have after so many brilliant minds have invested months and years of careful study have turned on such vaguaries and contingencies. Makes me think of Apollo 11 and how in an unanticipated crisis a handful of people were suddenly thrust in a room and told to come up with a way to jury rig a carbon dioxide filter using only materials that happened to be readily available in the spacecraft. My Dad was involved in that crisis though on other matters involving electrical engineering. American ingenuity in action but your story also shows an often hidden side of the politics of the Presidency.