They Said It Couldn't Be Done:
The Incredible Story of Bill Lear

"Recently Bill Lear, an inventor genius and creator of the Lear jet plane, wrote to the White House, "We are spending billions to explore space. It ought to be worth a little of that to clean up the small space close to home, no higher than 50,000 feet, which most men will never leave ..."

"This biography of a feisty, self-made millionaire who started life with only a grammar school education and a pocket full of tools and yet produced many inventions in radio, an automatic pilot for airplanes and the highly successful Lear Jet, is also the story of his current dedicated fight to displace the poison dispensing internal combustion engine with a steam propulsion system. Condemning the government's approach to air pollution as "nibbling," and the present tailpipe devices as "patches on patches," he believes that the internal combustion engine cannot be sufficiently pollution free — a stand that has not made him popular either on the Potomac or in Detroit."

But to the unstoppable Lear, powerful enemies simply add spice to the endeavor. To him, as to the thousands all over the world cheering him on, a steam propulsion system for mass transportation, on which he and his staff are now working, is a vital necessity, or the brown stain that today covers our cities will tomorrow blanket the continent. The Lear vapor turbine propulsion system bids fair to mark a turning point in man's struggle to save his environment."

"Victor Boesen is a former newspaper-man and war correspondent and the author of numerous magazine articles. A painstaking investigative reporter, he is an authority on pollution and his articles for West Magazine, published by the Los Angeles Times, have generated enormous response."

From the fly-leaf of: "THEY SAID IT COULDN'T BE DONE: The incredible Story of Bill Lear" by Victor Boesen. Double Day & Company, Garden City, New York, 1971. Library of Congress Catalog Number 71-111153.