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266 In a letter to The Surgeon General of the Army, written on 24 September 1945— less than 2 months after the surrender of the Japanese— Colonel Ash suggested such an arrangement as being beneficial to both parties, and to the Government as well. "We are now receiving daily requests from the Veterans' Administration for slides and diagnoses on cases that have been transferred to its facilities," Colonel Ash wrote, as evidence of the possibilities for a continuing "followup" of patients from their days in active service through their periods of treatment in the facilities of the Veterans' Administration. "There are now 97 Veterans' Facilities * * *" he wrote, and "no doubt this number will be greatly augmented shortly." The additional load, he added, could be handled by having the Veterans' Administration assign to the Institute two pathologists, two technicians, and two clerks.

After consultations and correspondence between the Administration and the Institute, Gen. Omar N. Bradley, Administrator of Veterans' Affairs, wrote the Secretary of War, on 12 June 1946, that the veterans' organization was "in need of certain forms of immediate assistance which it is believed could be provided by the Army Institute of Pathology." These were consultation and review as to pathological materials, assistance in training specialists in pathology and in studies of disease processes. General Bradley advised that informal conversations with The Surgeon General of the Army, Maj. Gen. Norman T. Kirk, and the Director of the Institute, indicated that the Institute was willing and capable of providing the assistance needed, if the Veterans' Administration would furnish personnel to cover the added workload. "This," General Bradley said, "we will be able to do." Use of the Institute's facilities, he added, would avoid needless duplication of facilities, while the Institute would "benefit through the accession of a great deal of additional material, much of which would be correlated with previous specimens received while patients were in military service." On 8 July 1946, Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson approved a plan so obviously desirable and in the best interest of both organizations, and of the patients whom both served. 31

Only a month before the consummation of the plan to have the Institute perform the central pathological service for the veterans' organization, Colonel Ash saw another of his projects come to pass when, on 7 June 1946, a new War Department Army Regulation was issued, amending AR 40-410 so as to make the "Army Institute of Pathology" the official designation of the whole operation, with four departments — the Department of Pathology, the Army