I'm in your debt for taking the trouble to provide details from the Vanderlinden book. In particular, I now see that the scope of work that you quoted from the book is much more limited than what he claimed in the article (note how "most" is a different matter from "all"). The claims of manufacturing stocks remains ludicrous.

My main issue is with writers who can't be bothered to at least give a nod in the direction of sourcing. All it takes is a phrase like, "...according to a report dated..." and the narrative can rumble right along. Failing to do that poorly serves readers new to the subject who lack a factual basis to challenge the unsupported claim and others who lack the analytical ability to spot rhetorical subterfuge. Heck, people get challenged all the time in this neighborhood to back up what they say and this is a pretty informal place. Unfortunately, you can't do that with an article.

I'm on the run, but here's one clear contradiction to the author's claims: the Aug 45 inspection report lists quite a quantity of pistols at FN. So, besides the question of why someone would engage in wild speculation about pistols being excluded from FN's work, it gives a further indication he did little or no research. An educated guess is fine; with incomplete data that's almost inevitable, but proposing a hypothesis, then trying to explain it with guesswork is irresponsible. His round peg was previous knowledge of FN's licenses with American gunmakers. Unfortunately, he tried to pound that round peg into the square hole of "all" US ETO small arms. It didn't work.

Thanks again for helping me confirm my suspicions.