McNair Paper Number 50, Chapter 7, Notes, August 1996
1. Donald M. Nelson, Arsenal of Democracy (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1946), 200-202.
3. Wartime Production Achievements and the Reconversion Outlook (Washington, DC: War Production Board, 1945), 14-15. This method of allocation lasted through 10 quarterly periods, essentially until the end of the war [Herman M. Somers, Presidential Agency: The Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950), 116; Paul A.C. Koistinen, "Warfare and Power Relations in American: Mobilizing the World War II Economy," in James Titus, The Home Front and War in the Twentieth Century: The American Experience in Comparative Perspective: Proceedings of the Tenth Air Force Academy Military History Symposium (Washington, DC:Office of Air Force History, 1984) 97, 98]. Koistinen, ever critical, sees the Controlled Materials Plan as an approach that "served to increase the hold of the military and the corporate giants on the [War Production Board] and the economy" (Koistinen, 97). Others found that the Production Requirements Plan failed for two basic reasons: it was poorly administered, and the armed services objected to the key role played by the War Production Board in controlling production. Under the new plan, the services were allocated the materials by the War Production Board then to be reallocated based on military priorities. See David Novick, Melvin Anshen, and W.C. Truppner Wartime Production Controls (New York: Columbia University Press, 1949), 129, 133, 165. "The fundamental objectives of the Controlled Materials Plan were clear from the start. They were (1) to assure a balance between supply and demand for the principal production materials designated under the plan as 'controlled materials'-carbon and alloy steel, brass [really copper], and aluminum; (2) to secure that balance by a coordinated review of military export, and essential civilian programs in terms of their controlled material equivalents, and by adjustments, wherever necessary, to yield that total commitment of our production resources calculated to secure maximum output for world military victory; (3) to schedule production for each approved end product program in order to secure the maximum level of balanced output at all levels of production from metal mill to final assembly plant; (4) to maintain continuing control over production and over the distribution of materials required to support approved production levels in all parts of the economy; and above all (5) to cut down the size of the total arms production program to realistic proportions by expressing all projects in addable currency common to virtually all programs-steel, copper, and aluminum . . . The original group of claiming agencies was . . . composed of the War Department, Navy Department, Maritime Commission . . . Aircraft Resources Control . . . Lend Lease Administration, Board of Economic Warfare, and Office of Civilian Supply. . . . The Controlled Materials Plan was the most complex piece of administrative machinery created during the period of the war emergency."
4. Alan Milward, War, Economy and Society: 1939-1945 (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979), 123-124.
5. Novick, Anshen, and Truppner, 167-170.
6. Novick, Anshen, and Truppner, 169-170. Nelson wrote that there was no single "vital to victory" war program. "We had a dozen or more, and all of them had to go along together. For example, steel plate was needed by merchant ships, but steel plate was also needed by the Navy for its warships, by the Army for its tanks, by Lend-Lease for the requirements of our Allies; it was essential, too, for the building of high-octane gasoline plants, rubber plants, and for the expansion of our overall industrial capacity." Nelson wrote of the complicated nature of the Controlled Materials Plan. One yard needed each month no fewer than 763 different kinds of steel plates and 455 different steel shapes. Many of the components came from subcontractors who received their materials from the primes. There were 6,000 subcontractors in the merchant shipbuilding business supplying thousands of parts. Nelson, 249-251.
7. Nelson, 251-256. Nelson cites Roosevelt for raising the priority of landingcraft to the Navy's "most urgent category." The president in 1942 saw the need before the Navy did, because the latter was focusing on destroyers and other anti-submarine craft for the Battle of the Atlantic. Nelson notes that landing craft expansion cut into many other shipbuilding programs, and there were still never enough landing craft.
8. Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 113.
9. Somers, 26-27. Nelson was also supine in front of the various synthetic rubber agencies. Kreidberg and Henry, 687-689, found the War Manpower Commission to be ineffective because it had no power to draft, assign. or punish civilian workers. "Manpower procurement and allocation activities were divided among a host of operating agencies, including the Army, Navy, Selective Service System, Department of Labor, Department of Agriculture, the Federal Security Agency, Civil Service and the [War Production Board]. Among the War Manpower Commission's successes was ensuring that too many dentists, physicians and veterinarians were not drafted, thus seeing that civilians were adequately covered."
10. Somers, 109-112. Nelson, on the other hand, despite the implications in Koistinen that the War Production Board Chairman had to fight both big business and the military, asserts that his authority was rarely challenged by industry. Nelson, 211. Moreover, Nelson's great defender, Bruce Catton, puts the onus on the military for weakening Nelson and the War Production Board. Although he does see big business allying itself with the military over the reconversion fight. Catton also recognized something that Koistinen asserts-Nelson had difficulty controlling the membership of his War Production Board. There were many strong personalities on the Board, some with different agendas. Routine tensions also helped make it an unharmonious agency. Bruce Catton, The War Lords of Washington (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1948),196-273, 80, 73.
17. David Robertson, Sly and Able: A Political Biography of James F. Byrnes (New York: Norton, 1994), 316-321. Byrnes already had been indispensable to Roosevelt. While in the Senate he had drafted and helped move key war powers and other emergency legislation, and even while an Associate Justice he continued to draft and expedite legislation. Attorney General Francis Biddle reported to Roosevelt on 9 January 1942 that "all defense legislation is being cleared by the departments and then through Jimmy Byrnes, who takes care of it on the Hill." Byrnes had been the "behind the scenes" sponsor of the first and second War Powers Acts passed in March 1942, that gave Roosevelt enormous powers to conduct the war without seeking additional legislation. Byrnes was so central to the president that the Chief Justice lightened his workload on the Supreme Court to give him the time he needed to assist Roosevelt. Byrnes' biographer asserted that Byrnes was not happy on the bench, and that he thoroughly enjoyed his new position, responsibilities and authority. This appointment, however, obviously undercut Nelson. Letter from Biddle and other comments cited in Robertson, 312-314. Byrnes had been the floor manager for Roosevelt's Lend-Lease Act, certainly the most controversial piece of emergency legislation to that point, and it is a testimony to Byrnes' skill and reputation in the Senate that Roosevelt won (Robertson, 296-297). Byrnes came to the task with enthusiasm-he openly favored aid to Britain and was a committed internationalist (Robertson, 294-295).
18. Somers, 38-39. Bruce Catton took it one step further declaring that the "firing of Nelson marked a defeat for the people." Catton, 289.
Return to NDU Homepage
INSS Homepage
What's New