He broke a decades-long silence on the Flying Wing's demise in a 1979 television interview,[11] accusing the Air Force of killing the project to punish him for refusing to merge his company with Consolidated Vultee. He alleged that Air Force Secretary Stuart Symington threatened him by saying, "You’ll be goddamned sorry if you don’t". Symington later left the government to head the very same Consolidated Vultee company Northrop has refused to merge with.[2] Symington called the charge "preposterous and absurd" and told a researcher[12] "There was a tremendous overcapacity in the industry following World War II".