- Chapter XIII:
The ASF and the WPB: Early Attempts To Define Responsibilities
The Army Service Forces during
World War II never experienced budgetary stringencies. From 1 July 1940
through 31 December 1941, Congress appropriated some twenty-five billion
dollars to the War Department for the procurement of war supplies other than
aircraft. About three billion dollars had also been allotted for lend-lease
purchases. Between 1 January and 30 June 1942, Congress appropriated another
23.5 billion dollars for military procurement by agencies of the newly
announced Army Service Forces. Appropriations for the fiscal years 1943 and
1944 added another fifty billion dollars.1
But funds to purchase supplies were
very different from the delivery of completed articles for Army use. In the
whole calendar year 1941 the procurement agencies which later made up the
Army Service Forces received actual deliveries of supplies amounting to 3.5
billion dollars. Of this amount, food stuffs were a major item .2
From 1 July 1940 through December 1941 the total production of American
industry for Army and Navy use included merely 65 heavy guns, 4,705 light
field and antitank guns, 6,787 tank guns and howitzers, 9,518 mortars,
87,172 machine guns, 4,203
tanks (almost all light), 7,833 scout cars, and 208,034 trucks.3
This was a start, but only a start toward the output of the tremendous
quantities of military mat6riel required to win World War II.
Military procurement involved a
whole complex of economic relationships-the necessary production plants,
specialized machine tools and the "know-how" to make them
effective, raw materials and component parts, adequate labor force, and on
top of all these, a "civilian" (i. e., essential but not directly
military) production adequate to support military output. Military
procurement could not operate in a vacuum; it had to be part of a highly
planned and highly organized total war production effort. As an agency of
the War Department, therefore, the Army Service Forces was only one element
of an intricate governmental machine for industrial mobilization.
[185]
This lesson had been taught in
World War I 4
The need for general industrial preparedness had been acknowledged by
Congress in amending the National Defense Act of 4 June 1920. Among the
provisions of the legislation was Section 5a which said that the
Assistant Secretary of War would supervise War Department procurement and
should make "adequate provision for the mobilization of materiel and
industrial organizations essential to wartime needs." 5
Upon the basis of this somewhat ambiguous language grew the industrial
mobilization planning of the War Department from 1920 to 1940. The Navy
Department was associated, in name at least, with this effort through the
device of the Army and Navy Munitions Board.
Although it had borne the
responsibility for industrial mobilization planning for the federal
government between -the two wars, the War Department never had any doubts
about the necessity for separate and distinct administrative machinery to
direct industrial mobilization. The 1939 revision of the so-called
Industrial Mobilization Plan was the last one prepared and published by the
ANMB before World War II. 6
Actually, the document was a "plan" only in a limited sense. It
was not a substantive program dealing with details of operations or
with estimates of magnitude; rather it set forth a proposed organizational
plan for agencies to be set up in order to accomplish industrial
mobilization.
The Industrial Mobilization Plan
briefly sketched the reasons for government control of industrial resources
in wartime and outlined the broad elements involved in such control. The
plan then presented positive
organizational proposals. When war became imminent, the President,
"under the authority accorded him by the Constitution and by the
Congress," was to supervise industrial mobilization before serious
economic problems developed. But the magnitude and emergency nature of the
task required an "adequate organizational set-up to which this
responsibility may be delegated. It is contemplated that such a set-up
will be manned by quaked civilians chosen by the President. Appropriate
representatives of the military services will advise and assist in the
accomplishment of the task involved."7
The plan then gave suggestions for the internal organization and the
responsibilities of a proposed War Resources Administration, together with
brief statements about other needed emergency agencies, such as a War
Finance Administration, a War Labor Administration, and a Price Control
Authority.
There are three features of the
Industrial Mobilization Plan which deserve particular notice. First, the
plan contemplated a civilian agency to direct industrial mobilization as a
whole. The plan specifically declared that in wartime the operation of the
various emergency agencies would be undertaken by civilian administrators
selected by the President.8
Second, the Army and Navy would continue to be
[186]
responsible for determining direct
military supply requirements and for actually placing orders and expediting
the production of war equipment. The plan recognized that in war, the
"actual procurement of the munitions needed by the services"
should continue to be performed by military officials. In the third place,
the role of the War Resources Administration was one of "wartime
industrial coordination": it was to adjust military requirements for
productive resources with other essential needs. The extent and nature of
the measures necessary to this task would be determined by the civilian
agency.
Thus there was nothing in the
prewar thinking of the War Department which suggested any belief that the
Army or the Navy or the ANMB could or should "control the civilian
economy." Indeed, in response to the criticism that industrial leaders
themselves had played no part in creating the Industrial Mobilization Plan,
the War Department in July 1939 set up a Committee of Review, composed of
prominent business men, to make suggestions about industrial mobilization.9
The War Resources Board, established with President Roosevelt's approval on
9 August 1939, criticized the centralization of economic controls in a
proposed War Resources Administration and suggested that the seven agencies
contemplated by the plan function directly under the President. But the
board said nothing to indicate that the Army and Navy should not be
responsible for the procurement of end items of military equipment.
From the time that President
Roosevelt set up the Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense
(NDAC) on 28 May 1940 until the
creation of the War Production Board on 7 January 1942, a number of
different agencies and a variety of methods were employed by the federal
government to mobilize the industrial resources of the nation.10
Two general aspects of this development are pertinent here. At first the
central civilian agency gave most of its attention to assisting the armed
forces in expanding their organization and in improving their procedures for
large-scale procurement. This phase had practically been completed at the
time of Pearl Harbor. Thereafter, the principal task was to control the use
of the nation's productive resources for military output and essential
civilian needs. This was increasingly necessary after Pearl Harbor.
When the NDAC began to operate, the
procurement bureaus of the War Department were just beginning to recover
from twenty years of limited personnel and meager operations. Under the
circumstances the Advisory Commission saw as its first task the job of
helping the armed forces, both in finding the necessary productive
facilities and in letting contracts for the rapidly increasing volume of
desired supplies. This assistance was provided mainly through two units, a
Purchases Division and a Production Division, as they were identified in the
Office of Production Management after January 1941. The Purchases Division
helped the Office of The Quartermaster General in the purchase of food
stuffs, clothing, and general Army supplies (including trucks). Mr. Douglas
C. MacKeachie of this division was instrumental in persuading The
Quartermaster General to set up regional market centers for the purchase of
produce to be supplied Army posts and air
[187]
bases. This system was retained
throughout the war and proved highly satisfactory. The Production Division
worked closely with the Office of the Chief of Ordnance in finding
contractors for tanks, guns, and ammunition. During 1941 when the OPM took
over the Social Security Building for its work, the Chief of Ordnance moved
his Washington office into the building in order to work even more closely
with OPM. At this early stage there was little for a civilian agency to do
in "controlling" the economy since there were great unused
resources in materials, manpower, and facilities to be absorbed by the
defense effort.
A priorities system on a very
simple basis was begun as early as August 1940. The Army and Navy agreed on
the preferences to be assigned some two hundred primary items of equipment,
and priorities were accordingly assigned by military procurement offices.
While the NDAC gave its consent to the arrangement, the operation remained
entirely in the hands of Army and Navy purchasing officials. Then in October
1940, the President officially created a Priorities Board, and a further
extension of preference ratings to military procurement items was arranged
in December.11
While there were occasional
disagreements over priorities between the OPM and Army and Navy
officials, the pattern begun in 1940 was retained throughout 1941. Army
and Navy purchasing officers assigned preference ratings to their
procurement contracts according to a scheme jointly worked out through
the Army and Navy Munitions Board and approved by OPM. These preference
ratings might be handed to a first subcontractor by the prime
contractor, and to all subcontractors for military items placed on a
"critical list." The official history of the War Production
Board comments that "the inadequacy of the OPM staff, and its
complete lack of a field organization, were he primary reasons why so
much of t priorities power
was thus surrendered t the Armed
Services." 12
During the second half of 1941 the
Ordnance Department b an to take over from OPM the person 1 who had been
helping to find product' n facilities and to let contracts. By the tire the
Army Service Forces was created this process of absorption was practically
completed. This change, described as "one of the significant
developments of 1941," has been lamented in the official history of the
WPB. "These transfers marked the end of any effective civilian
influence over the production or scheduling of direct military items or
components." 13
In the second half of 1941 there
was a policy conflict within the government over the curtailment of civilian
production of items consuming large quantities of metals, such as
automobiles and refrigerators. Indeed, the basic issues confronting OPM just
before Pearl Harbor were how far to curtail civilian production and
consumption, how fast to convert from industrial to war output, and how most
effectively to exercise central control over the distribution of basic
metals production. The armed services contributed to, but certainly did not
dominate, these discussions.
According to the official history
of the War Production Board, three basic developments in military
procurement and industrial mobilization had taken place by the time of Pearl
Harbor. First, the armed forces continued to let contracts for all
[188]
end-items of military equipment.
Their procurement officers issued preference ratings to their own
contractors to help them obtain necessary raw materials and component parts.
Second, civilian-managed agencies reporting directly to the President had
been created. At first these agencies had worked with the military
procurement agencies to improve purchasing operations, but gradually the OPM
became more and more of a central control agency, directing the utilization
of national productive resources. Third, close relationships .between
military procurement agencies and the central control agency became
increasingly essential. Naturally, Army and Navy officers asked for a voice
in formulating economic mobilization policy. But the Office of Production
Management had begun to object on the ground that this would give the
military too much power over predominantly civilian interests. 14
On the other hand, civilian leaders
never questioned the advisability of having the military direct its own
procurement activities. Mr. Bernard Baruch, who headed the War Industries
Board in World War I, advised that a civilian agency should never sign Army
contracts. Mr. Donald M. Nelson, Baruch's counterpart in World War II,
noted: "This advice sank into and anchored itself into my mind, and I
never deviated from it." 15
A month after Pearl Harbor the
President created a new general policy body, the War Production Board. In
contrast to its predecessors the Supply Priorities and Allocation Board
(SPAB)16
and the Office of Production Management 17
which lacked the authority to meet the rising emergency
the new board had wide, though somewhat ill-defined, powers.18
In addition to absorbing the
authority vested in OPM and SPAB, the War Production Board was to
"exercise general direction" over wartime procurement and
production. Specifically, this included the power to determine basic
policies, plans, procedures, and methods for guiding federal agencies in the
matter of purchasing, contracting, specifications, construction, conversion,
requisitioning, and plant expansion. The chairman of the WPB would issue
whatever directives were necessary; he would report from time to time to the
President; and, of course, he would perform any other duties that the
President desired. Moreover, federal departments and agencies were to comply
with the policies and procedures on war procurement and production as
determined by the WPB chairman, as well as to provide him with necessary
information. The chairman was to exercise his powers through such officials
or agencies as he might determine, and his decisions were to be final. As
chairman, President Roosevelt appointed Mr. Donald M. Nelson.
The authority conferred upon the
chairman of the War Production Board was broad indeed. But it was also
vague. What constituted "general direction" over war procurement?
Did the authority "to determine policies, plans, procedures, and
methods" of federal departments and agencies purchasing war supplies
imply the power to transfer procurement activities from one agency to
another-specifically from the Army to the WPB?
[189]
Mr. Nelson later recorded that at
one time he did consider the possibility of transferring all military
procurement to the WPB. It was his belief that the President would have
approved and supported such a decision on his part. But after thinking the
problem through, he "decided against such action in the interest of
more rapid production." He added that "if I had the same decision
to make over again I would do exactly the same thing."19
Mr. Nelson gave several reasons for his decision: the time needed to build a
new organization, the recollection of Mr. Baruch's advice against a civilian
agency signing munitions contracts, the disruption of the military services
if procurement officers were all transferred to a civilian agency, the
confusion that might result over specifications and inspection
responsibilities, and the legal obstacles including appropriation practices.20
Whatever Nelson's reasons for not
taking this step, one may entertain at least a grave doubt that the
authority conferred upon the chairman of the WPB conveyed the power to
transfer procurement operations away from the Army and Navy. By
long-standing legislation the purchase of military equipment had been vested
in various parts of the War and Navy Departments. Under the First War Powers
Act of 1941, the President might have transferred this authority to another
agency, but he did not actually do so in Executive Order 9024. While the
language of the order was very broad, it seems unlikely that the President
was delegating to Mr. Nelson his statutory authority to determine needed
wartime administrative organization. The understanding which had begun to
develop between the procurement offices of the Army and OPM during 1941
suggested a workable relationship. The language the executive order seemed
to say on that the WPB was still to be a central agency with general
authority over industrial mobilization as a whole, rat r than the actual
procurement agency for all war supplies.
Nonetheless, the meaning of
Executive Order 9024, and r. Nelson's intent there under, became immediate
and vital concerns to the War Department. Before 9 March 1942 the Office of
the Under Secretary of War was responsible for War Department relations with
the War Production Board. The Army half of the ANMB was a part of the Under
Secretary's office. Moreover, General Somervell as G-4 had taken steps in
January 1942 to build closer working relations with Mr. Nelson. The informal
group working on supply reorganization of the War Department requested Mr.
Nelson to assign someone to participate in this activity. Both Mr. A. C. C.
Hill, Jr., and Mr. E. A. Locke, Jr., personal assistants to Mr. Nelson, sat
with the group in February. Mr. Nelson, it will be recalled, was consulted
about the pending reorganization of the War Department, and in fact had
expressed the opinion that General Somervell would be a good man to command
the new Army Service Forces.21
On 12 March 1942, just three days
after the ASF came into being, Under Secretary Patterson and Mr. Nelson
signed a joint agreement defining the respective functions of the War
Department and the WPB in military procurement and indus-
[190]
trial mobilization. In an account
of his wartime experiences, Mr. Nelson reproduces :this agreement in full
and then comments:
I have never felt any reason to
regret the arrangement made that spring with the fighting services, for I am
convinced of the soundness of the pattern we set: the Armed Forces undertook
to assume full responsibility for all phases of the job which they were best
qualified to handle, while the civilian agency became accountable for the
maximum use of the Nation's economic resources, doing for the common benefit
the tasks which, if left to themselves, the Armed Forces could not possibly
have performed .22
No one in the Army Service Forces
of the War Department at any time would have dissented from any part of this
statement by Mr. Nelson.
The impetus for the 1942 agreement
came from the same informal group under Mr. Goldthwaite Dorr which worked on
internal War Department reorganization. The relations of the procurement
agencies of the Army to the War Production Board in 1942 were at a crucial
stage. Though the Army had been neither too well prepared nor too aggressive
in pushing military procurement before Pearl Harbor, the situation had
definitely changed thereafter.
Yet it was quite apparent that great
confusion surrounded Army-WPB relations after the 16 January executive
order., If the collaboration of the two, so vital to the success of the war effort,
was to go forward effectively, fear and suspicion had to be allayed.
Unless this was done, there was danger that persons within the WPB might
charge that the Army was trying to "take over the civilian
economy." On the other hand, early in 1942 the Army was definitely
worried about the WPB taking over direct military procurement. Whereupon Mr.
Dorr, joined by Mr. Robert R.
West and Colonel C. F. Robinson of
General Somervell's staff, approached Nelson's assistants, Mr. Hill and Mr.
Locke, about setting forth a joint agreement on mutual responsibilities.
Nelson's assistants acknowledged the need for such an agreement, and
accordingly the 12 March document was worked out.23
The 12 March agreement was vitally
important. 24
True, it did not prevent subsequent conflict between the ASF and the WPB,
but it did indicate General Somervell's belief in the importance of
maintaining desirable relationships between the two agencies. During all
major disputes that later arose, Under Secretary Patterson, General
Somervell, and other ASF representatives came back to this agreement as the
"magna charta" defining relationships with the WPB. Their attitude
was that all difficulties could be settled by using this agreement as the
basic formula.
The agreement of 12 March stated
that the War Production Board, had certain over-all functions in controlling
the resources of the American economy, including the production and
distribution of raw materials. Under it the War Department would present its
supply requirements to the WPB and would procure end-items of munitions.
More specifically, the WPB was charged with making the basic decisions about
the allocation of economic resources in accordance with strategic plans;
with providing the means-i.e. materials, services, tools, and
facilities-needed to
[191]
carry out the total war effort; and
with organizing industry for war production. To carry out these duties most
effectively, it would be necessary for the WPB to cooperate with the War
Department in the review of supply programs, and, in the light of military
necessities, to adjust civilian programs within the limitation of total
resources.
Besides integrating and adjusting military and civilian
requirements, the WPB would supervise the total utilization of the economic
resources of the nation; develop sources and production of raw materials as
well as services (including transportation, power, and communications);
stock-pile raw materials and those end products which were likely to be in
short supply at some future date; expedite the production of raw materials,
machine tools, and industrial supplies, or any items where the War
Department could not do so without conflicting with other agencies; curtail
nonessential uses of materials, facilities, services and manpower
indispensable to the accomplishment of the munitions program; expand
available skilled manpower (through training, transfer, and reduction in
man-hours); direct the provision of facilities needed to produce raw
materials, equipment, tools and services; determine the plants or industries
which should be converted to the production of supplies for the War
Department and help the War Department to carry out that conversion; assure
the production of necessary facilities auxiliary to the production and
distribution of military supplies; organize industrial co-operation with
government agencies; maintain a virile civilian economy consistent with war
necessity; distribute the available supply of raw materials and industrial
equipment with particular reference to the major using agencies; and
finally, make decisions, legal
or otherwise, which had to do with priorities, allocations, and
requisitions, and placement of orders in existing facilities.
On the other hand, the War
Department would continue its traditional interests in supply matters.
Through the Army Service Forces and thro0gh the newly created Materiel
Command of the Army Air Forces the War Department would, in compliance with
WPB directives, carry on the research, design, development, programming,
purchase, production, storage, distribution, issue, maintenance, and salvage
of military equipment. To carry out this mission, the War Department would
determine military needs and translate them into a statement of requirements
for raw materials, machine tools, and labor; convert available plants and
industries to war production (assisted by WPB); negotiate the purchase of
military supplies by the placement and administration of contracts; produce,
inspect and accept military goods; issue shipping instructions and plan for
distribution; construct and expand plants for the production of end items;
expedite production of finished items where there was no conflict with other
agencies; conserve raw materials insofar as possible by the elimination of
nonessential items and by the simplification and standardization of others.
Finally, the WPB and the War Department were to develop close organizational
relationships by direct contact between officials in both agencies who were
concerned with common problems.
Even before this agreement was
made, Under Secretary Patterson had begun to arrange for the transfer of key
personnel from the WPB to the Army. One of the phases of military
procurement specified in the statement was: "purchase, includ-
[192]
ing the negotiation, placement, and
administration of contracts." As previously noted, the predecessor
agencies of the War Production Board at first had done much to assist Army
procurement bureaus in placing contracts. Mr. Patterson, and then General
Somervell, had asked that key WPB personnel performing this work be
transferred to the military staff .where these individuals could use direct
command authority to continue their work. The two most prominent persons
transferred shortly thereafter were Mr. D. C. MacKeachie, formerly of the
Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, and Mr. Albert J. Browning, formerly
president of the United Wall Paper, Factories, Inc. Both men were
commissioned as colonels and given the responsibility of directing the
Purchases Division in ASF headquarters. Though the action was criticized
within the WPB and elsewhere as an abdication to the armed forces, Mr.
Nelson apparently believed this to be a wise policy.25
In March 1942 the prospects of
friendly and effective co-operation between the WPB and the ASF looked
bright indeed. But there were portents of trouble ahead, portents of which
leading officials in the ASF, including General Somervell himself,
unfortunately were unaware.
According to the official history
of the WPB, hostility within that agency toward the Army Service Forces
began to brew within a month. In the process of working out the supervision
of the seven technical services, which were the procurement agencies of the
War Department, General Somervell's office continued to discuss his problems
with the WPB. In amalgamating the Supply Division of the War Department
General Staff and the Office of the Under Secretary of War, Somervell had
created a Resources Division in ASF headquarters.26
None of the duties assigned this office were any different from those for
which the Under Secretary had been responsible since 1920.
There were units
to supervise machine tools, raw materials, power, product standardization,
facilities, and manpower problems within the ASK The Resources Division was
to follow these aspects of procurement operations by the seven technical
services, make adjustments among them, and present consolidated requirements
to the WPB. There was no implication in this arrangement that the ASF could
settle all these problems, but only that the ASF as a unit would deal
directly with the WPB on these matters. But the duties of the Resources
Division in ASF headquarters were regarded inside the WPB as a
"duplication of functions," as threatening to diminish and even to
eliminate WPB controls.27
In the past the WPB and its predecessors had dealt directly with the heads
of technical services. Now it was expected to deal primarily with ASF
headquarters, rather than with each technical service individually. Key
personnel in WPB apparently believed that this development would impede
their operations. Mr. Nelson has written that "our relations with the
Quartermaster Corps, the Ordnance Department, the Signal Corps, the Medical
Corps, and the Corps of Engineers, which were the chief procurement
agencies, were always splendid. But above this level we always had
trouble." 28
[193]
The reason for this
"trouble," according to Mr. Nelson, was a fundamental difference
in viewpoint between General Somervell and himself. Nelson believed that
Somervell was opposed to making raw materials available for even the most
essential civilian needs. Actually Somervell took no such position. The
determination of "essential civilian requirements" for wartime
production planning and control was so complex that the WPB itself was never
able to solve this problem satisfactorily.29
Because essential civilian production requirements limited military
procurement, it was natural that the Army Service Forces should ask about
and examine estimates of civilian supply just as WPB officials reviewed and
revised military estimates to make them conform to production possibilities.
General Somervell and his aides disagreed with the WPB on details and
specific figures, but they never took the position that there was no such
thing as essential civilian requirements nor did they ever question the fact
that the final decision on these requirements rested with Mr. Nelson, and
after May 1943, with justice James F. Byrnes.
The controversy over essential
civilian needs raged ceaselessly. On the one hand, the ASF could quote Mr.
Julius A. Krug, Nelson's successor as chairman of the War Production Board.
His final report to the President at the end of the war pointed out that as
great as our war effort was, it never absorbed more than two fifths of our
national output. Because of their higher and steadier income, civilians
during World War II consumed more than they did in the best prewar years.
"Throughout the war," Mr. Krug said, "the people at home were
subjected to inconvenience, rather than sacrifice." 30
On the other hand, Mr. Nelson argued that the ASF was
unreasonable on the question of providing essential civilian goods.
Asserting that a healthy civilian economy was a prerequisite of maximum war
production, he observed that General Somervell objected even to such
items as new replacements for farm machinery and for repairs to coal mining
equipment. Certainly the WPB was subjected to intense pressure not only from
Somervell, but from Secretary of War Stimson, Secretary of the Navy Knox,
Under Secretary of War Patterson and other top military officials. Nelson
grimly stuck to his guns in defending his position.
Even though there was disagreement
over what constituted essential civilian requirements, there was little
doubt that as national production reached its maximum, military needs could
be met only by cutting allocations to the civilian economy. In order to
reconcile civilian and military claims with the nation's economic resources,
it was necessary for representatives of the WPB and the armed forces to work
closely together. Within a month of his appointment as commanding general of
the ASF, Somervell asked his Control Division, working with representatives
from Mr. Nelson's office, to explore this problem in organizational terms
and to recommend a desirable solution. The result was a study which General
Somervell transmitted to Mr. Nelson on 15 May 1942. Because of the cover in
which it was bound, this study came to be known as "the black
book." 31
In his letter of trans-
[194]
mittal, General Somervell pointed
out that the proposals contained in the study had already been informally
discussed with the chairman of the WPB and that they were designed to
streamline procedure. The organizational arrangements, he stated, seemed to
be inadequate and remedial measures were essential. The proposed changes, he
added, could be carried out easily within the existing framework of war
organization and without destroying public confidence in the War Production
Board.
The study which Somervell forwarded
for Mr. Nelson's consideration was.entitled Report on Certain Features
of the Organizational Problems Involved in Developing Resources to Meet
Strategic Requirements.32
The report was predicated on a general proposition which was already
being much discussed within the ASF; namely, that the military operations of
the war would be greatly influenced, if not dominated, by the limitations of
industrial output. For example, the supply of copper was insufficient to
meet all requirements. Accordingly, it was essential for strategic decisions
to be adjusted in the light of available supplies of raw materials and the
resulting military equipment provided from current war production. The
principal defect of the present organization for industrial mobilization
was, the report declared, an inadequate arrangement for correlating
strategy, logistics requirements, and productive resources. The report also
pointed out the need for more systematic procedures in the WPB for
controlling the distribution of available raw materials. To meet the need,
it recommended a system of formal committees to promote closer collaboration
between the WPB and the War and Navy Departments. Most important of all, it
suggested new machinery to tie
together the Combined Chiefs of Staff, the War Production Board, and the
procurement agencies of the armed forces.
The AST report acknowledged the
generally accepted fact that existing procedures for controlling the
distribution of raw materials were unsatisfactory. Although the Army point
of view on a "satisfactory" method of control was in process of
development, it was not presented in the report. The report did propose
certain changes in internal WPB organization, on the assumption that control
of raw materials production, conservation, and distribution had become the
central tasks of the WPB. It suggested that the WPB Requirements Committee,
which had been officially created on 20 January 1942 by Mr. Nelson, and
which included representatives of the Army and Navy, become the center of
WPB decision making on raw materials questions and that subordinate
committees for each essential raw material be created, each with Army, Navy,
and other appropriate representation. 33
Once more the ASF report contemplated that decisive authority would remain
in the WPB; it was simply recommending what it thought was stronger
machinery for collaborative relationships.
The ASF report further dealt with a
suggested over-all arrangement for the correlation of production and
strategy. The period immediately after Pearl Harbor brought a number of
efforts to develop close military co-operation between the United States and
the United Kingdom. One of these was the creation of a Com-
[195]
bined
Raw Materials Board 34
announced by the President and the Prime
Minister on 26 January 1942.34
On the assumption that the Combined Raw Materials Board might become a major
factor in determining the use of American raw materials, the ASF proposed
that the board be set up as an agency of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, just
as the Munitions Assignments Board was. This would acknowledge that raw
material resources and their use in war production were intimately related
to military strategy. In addition, the membership of the board should be
reconstituted, although the chairman should be a civilian. By proposing that
the chairman of this board should be the same person who was chairman of the
MAB, the ASF was nominating Mr. Harry Hopkins for the position. It was also
suggested that the American membership on the board should be increased to
include representatives of the Army, Navy, and Air Forces.
This recommendation was not
intended to suggest that military officers would outvote the WPB on the
Combined Raw Materials Board. Rather, the civilian chairman was expected to
have the same power of decision as that vested in the chairman of the WPB,
who while he might seek advice from the military, had final and complete
authority. The Army did not want power, it wanted an opportunity formally to
know what was happening and to present its case. And it wanted to make sure
that American raw materials were used in substantial proportion for American
war needs rather than for United Kingdom production.
It should be emphasized once more
that the ASF report was for discussion only; that it was transmitted to Mr.
Nelson for his "consideration." It was by no means a carefully
worked out, detailed organization plan. Moreover, the report had been
shown beforehand to persons in Mr.
Nelson's office, and none of them advised General Somervell not to transmit
the ASF report to Mr. Nelson. Rather, they indicated that the report would
be helpful in the internal reorganization of the WPB which was pending and
which was eventually announced by Mr. Nelson on 8 July 1942.36
To make matters worse, General Somervell's trip overseas at this time
prevented a personal meeting to iron out difficulties, and the subsequent
"leaking" of the story to the press aggravated the situation. By
June when General Somervell returned, it was too late. The sparks had been
fanned into a flame.
Mr. Nelson's reply to the Somervell
letter came as a bombshell.37
From a later vantage point, to be sure, much of it seems reasonable. But in
the atmosphere of the war production crisis of 1942 the letter crystallized
a disagreement on fundamentals. In a sense it was an open challenge to the
Army Service Forces. Apparently in fear of military encroachment, important
figures in the WPB had ,persuaded Mr.
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Nelson to fight for his authority.
To them it involved the fundamental issue of civilian control over the
nation's economy.
The charge that the Army was trying
to take over the civilian economy had been made before and was to be
repeated over and over in subsequent disputes. The difficulty seems to have
been a lack of mutual understanding.
Not only Somervell, but Under Secretary
Patterson, and even General Marshall himself, expressed their concern over
the impact of civilian consumption on Army supply.38
Shortly before Mr. Nelson's answer to Somervell, the WPB had become involved
over a similar issue with the Army and Navy Munitions Board .39
To many sensitive civilians, raising the question of military interest in
economic matters seemed a threat to civilian rights. Statements by a man as
forthright as General Somervell, driving relentlessly to achieve the goals
of the Army Supply Program, could easily be interpreted as an effort by the
military to sit in judgment upon essential civilian requirements.
Actually
Somervell had no such idea and he believed that Mr. Nelson's remark that
"it would be a fundamental mistake to put the apportionment of
materials for the essential civilian economy under the military"-was as
irrelevant as it was unfounded.
Mr. Nelson in his reply also
discussed three other elements of the ASF proposal. He agreed that the
existing machinery for controlling the distribution of raw materials was
inadequate but held that this was largely because of the loose manner in
which Army and Navy procurement officers issued preference ratings, and
because of "the failure of the services to present accurate statements
of their requirements." For example, on a common nonmilitary item such
as typewriters, the Army's originally stated requirement for 1942
was more than double the amount calculated to be adequate for the entire
civilian economy in the same year.
Mr. Nelson noted the ASF proposal
for reorganization within the War Production Board and observed that the WPB
was already studying desirable changes. The ASF suggestions concerning the
Requirements Committee and subordinate commodity committees were helpful,
Mr. Nelson remarked, and he suggested further conversations on this matter.
To Mr. Nelson the most far-reaching
ASF suggestion was the one proposing a new over-all arrangement for
co-ordinating strategy and production. He agreed "emphatically"
that this was necessary, but declared that the ASF method was
"basically in error." The ASF misconceived the nature of the
materials problem on two scores. First, the management of raw and basic
materials could not be "ripped out of the process of managing
production, segregated, and handled separately." The attempt to draw a
parallel between the work of the Combined Raw Materials Board which dealt
with the "whole vast process of production" and the Munitions
Assignments Board, which was merely a scheduling agency, missed the point,
Mr. Nelson asserted. Second, it was strategy and production goals of
end-items and not strategy and the distribution of raw materials which had
to be correlated. Moreover, he argued, the success of the program rested
"not with the Chiefs of Staff, but with the chiefs of production . . .
. The battle of production is the primary responsibility of the chairman of
the WPB in much the
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same sense that military battles
are the primary responsibility of the military chiefs." The solution to
the problem of coordination of strategy and production was a continuous and
harmonious co-operation between the Combined Chiefs of Staff and the War
Production Board.
Mr. Nelson's heated reply to the
ASF "black book" opened "a breach which was never
closed," to use Nelson's own words.40
The WPB chairman used the incident as the occasion to assert that the WPB
could control the economic resources of the nation without organizational
advice or assistance from the ASE Instead of simply thanking General
Somervell for his interest and then overlooking the matter, Mr. Nelson
retorted in what appeared at the time to be some heat, refuting the ASF
ideas and putting forth other propositions. The WPB reaction was all the
more disconcerting because it was unexpected. The close co-operation between
Nelson and Somervell which seemed in prospect in early 1942 had thus
evaporated by the end of May.
Yet the ASF and the WPB had to work
together, whether they liked it or not. And out of this early attempt at
organizing relationships to mutual advantage, at least something was
salvaged. The 12 March agreement recommended that there be a
"continuous survey of working relationships between the two
agencies." As a first step in this direction, the ASF Control Division
embarked upon two so-called field surveys. Colonel Robinson, director of the
Control Division, invited leading personnel from WPB to participate in these
surveys. On the first survey, five persons from the WPB worked closely with
eight persons from the ASF. On the
second, six WPB men collaborated with ten persons from the ASE.
These field surveys made a general
study of local Army procurement office operations, relations with
contractors, and relations with regional offices of the WPB. The purpose was
to obtain information which would be useful in organizing ASF headquarters
and in determining which problems most needed attention. For example, from
these surveys came warnings of growing raw materials shortages which were
hampering military deliveries, and of prospective manpower stringencies.41
This WPB-ASF collaboration was cordial and helpful. Out of it came the
Office of Organization Planning in the WPB, with the ASF consultant who had
directed the field surveys as its head, Dr. Luther Gulick. Out of it too,
came an agreement on WPB-ASF field relationships. The field surveys called
attention to confusion in the relationships between the regional offices of
the War Production Board and the local procurement offices of the ASF
technical services.
After preliminary discussions
between Control Division personnel and field operations officials of the
WPB, General Somervell sent a letter to Mr. Nelson on 29 June 1942, setting
forth the ASF position on field relations. Finally, on 11 September Nelson
replied in a fourteen-page letter which was distributed throughout the ASF
on 22 September 1942.42
Nelson began by observing that he believed "a
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pattern has been set for continuing
understanding of our respective field organizations." He agreed that
the proposals were based upon the 12 March agreement and upon the principle
that "functions now being performed satisfactorily by either of our
agencies should not be disturbed regardless of how logical it may seem to do
so from an organizational or jurisdictional standpoint." Then Mr.
Nelson reproduced Somervell's letter paragraph by paragraph and added his
own comments.
Somervell had noted that, in
general, the technical service procurement district offices "need no
asistance in the production expediting and engineering field for
end-items." WPB personnel performing useful services of this nature
ought to be transferred to appropriate ASF offices and WPB units should then
withdraw from this work. Mr. Nelson assented but added that where
substantial delays in delivery performance arose, procurement district
offices might request WPB regional offices to investigate the reason. He
likewise agreed that except where required by the law setting up the Smaller
War Plants Corporation, the WPB had no responsibility for placing contracts
for military equipment. This "routine day-by-day matter" was a
function of the procurement district office, although WPB regional
organizations might help in locating contractors or subcontractors for
either a procurement district office or a military prime contractor.
In a long paragraph General
Somervell had set forth his concept of how WPB regional offices could render
"a much needed and useful service, by expediting and increasing the
supply of raw materials, semi-finished items, and certain components."
They could increase the supply by encouraging additional shifts; by opening
closed mines and plants; by urging full utilization of refining or smelting
capacity, by locating hidden, frozen or excess inventories; and by
expediting the production of component parts such as boilers, pumps, and
valves which were being produced by the same manufacturer for the armed
services and the Maritime Commission. To this Mr. Nelson replied simply that
the ASF should look to the WPB for the "development of programs for the
increased production of raw materials, semi-finished items, and certain
components."
In the next place, General
Somervell had expressed his belief that design, specifications, and the use
of substitutes were "so intimately connected with the problem of the
usefulness of finished munitions for the purpose intended" that these
must be left to the Army procurement agencies. Mr. Nelson assented. In other
paragraphs of his letter, Somervell had noted duplication and lack of
uniformity in surveys of both production facilities and machine tools. He
proposed that WPB adopt and administer standard systems and make its
information available to Army procurement offices. Nelson agreed and added
that regional WPB offices would collect and provide information and report
on unused capacity. The procurement districts would then be asked to
indicate whether any of this capacity could be used.43
General Somervell had further asked
that the WPB act as a "screen" and a "wailing wall" for
manufacturers seeking
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war work. It should also provide
information about WPB regulations and about procedures in obtaining raw
materials. On this point Mr. Nelson commented that the regional offices
would be advised to continue valuable work of this sort which they were
already performing. He asked that procurement districts notify the proper
regional office from sixty to ninety days in advance of the expiration of
any contract which would make a plant available for other work. Subsequent
paragraphs in Somervell's letter had dealt with WPB's role in working with
federal, state, and local agencies on community problems arising out of war
production, such as local transportation and housing for workers; and in
working with the War Manpower Commission on the use of skilled and
semiskilled labor for war production. Mr. Nelson agreed substantially with
them and indicated how much of this work was already being done.
On the problem of regional
boundaries Somervell had said only that there appeared to be "no fully
satisfactory solution." Nelson referred to the "problem of
co-ordinate regional boundaries" as "almost insurmountable,"
but added that he would have his staff continue to study it in collaboration
with the ASF Control Division. The remaining paragraphs were mostly of a
general nature. Somervell had expressed the hope that ASF procurement
districts might call upon the WPB regional offices for assistance in cases
of difficulties. He had also expressed the opinion that appropriate
instructions should be issued embodying this agreement. This was done by
distribution of the correspondence within the ASF and WPB.
This 11 September 1942 letter of
Mr. Nelson was important for two reasons. First, it indicated that WPB
officials at the working level could sit down with ASF officers and adjust
their differences satisfactorily. Specific issues had been involved in these
discussions, and presumably the final result was as satisfactory to the WPB
as to the ASF. No "ideological" disputes about civilian-military
relationships were permitted to intrude, and no newspaper fanfare
accompanied or complicated the discussions.44
Second, the Somervell-Nelson correspondence of September 1942 reaffirmed
understandings first put forth in the 12 March agreement. Obviously the ASF
regarded full responsibility for letting contracts for direct military items
and for expediting the production of such items as essential to its war
supply mission. But there was still a big job for the WPB to do in
allocating raw material and other industrial resources among various wartime
needs, and in expediting the production of raw materials, component parts,
and general supplies.
The ASF never suggested that the
WPB was unnecessary or that it could do the WPB job better. Rather, the ASF
concept was that the two should work together, complementing each other in
the task of supporting the armed forces in their quest for military victory
over the Axis.
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Page Created June 13th 2001
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