McNair Paper Number 50, Chapter 4, August 1996

The National Defense Act of 1920 (which was the foundation for the Planning Branch, the Army and Navy Munitions Board and Army Industrial College) directed that the Assistant Secretary of War prepare an industrial mobilization plan to prevent the fumbling that occurred during World War I. (Note 1) During the interwar period there were four plans developed. The first, in 1922, written in the Planning Branch, was really an outline of a plan to be prepared in three volumes that later became an Industrial Mobilization Basic Plan in 1924-but which still lacked detail. The latter "plan," or the 1924 "plan," recognized the need for an industrial mobilization superagency to be "established by act of Congress or by the President, under congressional authority for the purpose of coordinating, adjusting and conserving the available agencies for resources so as to promptly and adequately meet the maximum requirements of the military forces and the essential needs of the civilian population." This was basically a procurement plan. The keystone of the 1924 plan and all those that followed was a hypothetical Mobilization Day (M-Day), the date of the first day of mobilization, considered simultaneous with a declaration of war. The officers in the Planning Branch (and subsequent authors) found it inconceivable "in the light of American practice and thinking" that the "United States would ever begin mobilizing before the outbreak of war."(Note 2) As it actually happened, Roosevelt indeed began to plan for mobilizing industry even before Germany invaded Poland, and legislation to assist mobilization was passed well before 7 December 1941. Four mobilization agencies were tried and all failed before the Japanese bombed Pearl harbor. M-Day thinking was a mistake.

The next plan, written in 1930, had additional flaws, all of which were carried through in subsequent Industrial Mobilization Plans. One was the assertion that existing executive and other government agencies should not be used as any of the government's tools for industrial mobilization. This provoked hostility in the senior departments. Another was the failure to recommend a branch to collect, assess and distribute statistics. Most significant was the failure to recognize that the United States would probably have to assist in arming its allies. (Note 3) The 1933 Plan's preface summarized the thinking behind all of the interwar industrial mobilization planning:

Complicated weapons and machines are used up rapidly in war. Armies and Navies must not only be well supplied initially, but maintenance must be adequate and continuous. Thus, the success of a modern fighting force, is directly and immediately dependent upon the ability of the Nation's resources to satisfy promptly its requirement in munitions. . . . War is no longer simply a battle between armed forces in the field-it is a struggle in which each side strives to bring to bear against the enemy the coordinated power of every individual and every material resource at its command. . . . The following comprise the essentials of a complete plan for mobilization of Industry:

a. Procurement planning

(1) Determination of requirements

(2) Development of Plans for the procurement of such requirements

b. Plans for control of economic resources and mobilization of industry

(1) Determination of the measures to be employed to insure the proper coordination and use of the Nation's resources.

(2) Development of plans for the organization and administrative machinery that will execute these control measures. (Note 4)

The Plan was approved by both the Secretary of War and Secretary of the Navy (the first to be approved by both and the first written by the Army and Navy Munitions Board). Only 102 pages long, it came with an appendix of proposed industrial mobilization bills drafted for congressional consideration. This plan called for the appointment, by the president, of an "Administrator of War Industries." (Note 5)

The Army and Navy Munitions Board prepared a plan for a transition organization to implement industrial mobilization during the period immediately after a declaration of war and before the War Industries Administration was fully formed. Staff officers wrote in a memorandum of 19 July 1934: "In order to make the War Industries Administration responsive to the needs of the Army and Navy, it is proposed to take from the Army and Navy Munitions Board and from the Army and Navy Departments a limited number of seasoned officer personnel . . . to assist the Administrator of the War Industries Administration and to act as advisors to him." The memo also suggested that the Army and Navy Munitions Board "conform its structure to that planned for the War Industries Administration." This meant that at the outset of the war the country's economy would be controlled by Army and Navy officers. (Note 6)

The 1936 plan, a further revision of the 1933 plan (which was a revision of the 1930 plan) was only 75 pages long, including suggested legislation! (Note 7) This plan called for a War Resources Administration and War Resources Administrator, an individual with powers similar to those that Bernard Baruch had in 1918 as head of the War Industries Board and James F. Byrnes was to get in May 1943 as Director of the Office of War Mobilization. Baruch, who was asked to review this plan, was critical of it because it failed adequately to consider the production needs of the civilian population. He was also insistent that industrial mobilization be implemented under civilian control and that specific plans for the use of industry should be made by civilian industrial experts in the respective fields. He found intolerable the degree of involvement in industrial mobilization of the Army and Navy Munitions Board. (Note 8)

The 1939 plan was even shorter than the 1936 revision, only 18 pages (although there were more than 100 pages of annexes dealing with commodities, facilities, labor, power, fuel, prices, transportation, finance and trade). Similar to the 1936 edition, the new plan called for an Administrator of War Resources to be at the top of the entire mobilization apparatus. All other agencies formed to mobilize the country's industries were to assist the War Resources Administrator. (Note 9) This plan was published after Germany invaded Poland and it was not used. The muddling that had accompanied World War I mobilization was being repeated. Given the eagerness expressed by the Assistant Secretary of War and the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, why?

For one reason, the plans were thin-the last being only 18 pages-and therefore superficial. One reason for this superficiality was the number of staff officers who could be in Washington either on the Army General Staff or in the Assistant Secretary's Office was severely limited by Congress. There were simply too few staff officers to perform significant industrial mobilization planning at the same time as operational planning and other staff functions. Congress, moreover, was always leery of expanding the powers of the executive and never more so than in a period when the country was at peace. Representatives and senators were especially concerned that the president might drag the country into an unnecessary war. The disillusionment and resentment that followed World War I hamstrung the president because it was deeply reflected in Congress and the decisions of that body. (Note 10)

Although perhaps better than nothing, and certainly better than anything on the shelf in April 1917 when Congress declared war on Germany, the Industrial Mobilization Plans were flawed. They were prepared entirely by military agencies with some knowledge of industry but no real depth. They were, moreover, rigidly based on the M-Day concept and lacked the flexibility needed for adaptation to a gradual mobilization. The mobilization planners, moreover, assumed a one-front war like the one they had experienced in World War I. The Army and Navy Munitions Board, furthermore, was unwilling to work with existing governmental departments. Most importantly, President Roosevelt could not possibly abide a plan that put so much power in the hands of the uniformed military. (Note 11) The implementation of such a plan in 1939 when Poland was conquered or even June 1940 when France fell would be out of the question politically. It was not even possible when the Soviet Union was invaded in June 1941. And Roosevelt was still not ready to put direction of the economy under the military when the United States was attacked on 7 December 1941. (Note 12)

In addition to political problems perceived by the president, internal difficulties existed within the Army. The rancor between the General Staff and the Assistant Secretary's office was echoed in the lack of coordination between the logistics element (G-4) and the operations element (G-3) on the general staff. The operations plans drawn up by G-3 and various joint planning elements were logistically unrealistic. With the 1933 Industrial Mobilization Plan and a survey of industry in hand (by 1940 the Planning Branch and other planners had surveyed 30,000 industrial firms that supplied 70,000 different items the Army required(Note 13)), the G-4 wrote in 1936 that the forces to be mobilized in the first 30 days after M-Day could be fed, transported, and sheltered in a "reasonably satisfactory manner" and could also be "supplied with required equipment from storage or procurement except (emphasis added) for airplanes, tanks, combat cars, scout cars, antiaircraft guns, searchlights, antiaircraft fire control equipment, .50 caliber machine guns, pontoon equipment, . . . gas masks, radio and telephone equipment and equipment for medical regiments." (Note 14)

In addition to the political climate militating against implementation, superficial planning, and disharmony between operators and logisticians, the United States business world was not too keen on being mobilized until the president and Congress and the people were behind it. Although the attitude of business toward mobilization warmed as the military situation in Europe darkened in 1941, the real change in perspective did not occur until the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Fifteen years of contact between the military and industry had not improved the attitude of businessmen. (Note 15) They were hurt by the boom and bust cycle of World War I and were not to be hurt willingly again.

Ultimately it came down to Roosevelt. He did indeed scuttle the Industrial Mobilization Plan of 1939, only to be driven back to its "essential form in 1943 after years of wasted administrative motion." Why? Because in the period from 1939 to 1941 he saw himself bound to his political base. He had to rally and sustain a "New Deal political coalition for reelection" and a country for a "united world war effort." He simply had to avoid confrontation with "major power groups both inside and outside of Washington." In the end, the president rejected the Industrial Mobilization Plan because "he could not afford politically to be seen to support a plan that organized labor and agricultural spokesmen and influential New Dealers opposed, even if he had wanted" to himself. Big industrialists, furthermore, were opposed to government control, had been hostile to much that Roosevelt had done during the New Deal, and had "demonstrated unparalleled ability to retain prerogatives notwithstanding economic and wartime crises. And they continued to exact a price for their private performances." The president "had to bargain" with the industrialists, "and bargaining means joint decision making and shared power." (Note 16) In other words, the president was not at all a free agent in this matter, or, at least, he did not see himself as one.

It is not that the Army Industrial College, the Planning Branch, and the Army and Navy Munitions Board accomplished nothing. Their procurement recommendations were followed, although not immediately, and their surveys of industry helped the service procurement agencies. This was significant because the Planning Branch and Army and Navy Munitions Board retained procurement authority throughout the war. More than 90 percent of the ordnance contracts that were negotiated during World War II went to firms that had been surveyed in the 1920s and 1930s. The vast bulk of the work for Signal, Engineer, Army Air Forces, and Chemical Warfare procurement went to surveyed firms. And during 1942, the Army and Navy Munitions Board set priorities for all contracts for the Army, Navy, Maritime Commission, the Coast Guard, and even some Lend-Lease orders. The Army and Navy Munitions Board was the medium through which the services presented their requirements to the War Production Board. In late 1942, Board members were directly transferred to the industry divisions of the War Production Board, ending this role. (Note 17)

Surely the president was aware of the general planning processes that produced the Industrial Mobilization Plan, because in August 1939, on the initiative of Assistant Secretary of War Louis Johnson, he permitted appointments by the Secretary of War to the War Resources Board-Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., Board Chairman of United States Steel, and four prominent industrialists, educators, or investment bankers to study the plan and recommend adoption or revision. (Note 18) Louis Johnson apparently hoped that Roosevelt was about to implement the Industrial Mobilization Plan when he appointed members to the War Resources Board, because Johnson welcomed the members of the Board (with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Thomas Edison) on 9 August 1939 with an announcement that in the event of an emergency or war, the Board would become a superagency analogous to the War Industries Board in World War I. Before it went out of business in November 1939, the board endorsed most of the 1939 Industrial Mobilization Plan, but it was disbanded by the president and its report was classified. (Note 19)

Why? For one thing, Board membership included no one from either labor or agriculture. For another, the plan contemplated speedy enactment of a full range of legislation required to permit a War Resources Administration to control prices, profits, wages, labor allocation, imports, exports, etc. But the president, who did not see the Board's likely metamorphosis in the same light as Louis Johnson, was not ready to ask for this legislation because he believed Congress was not ready to pass it. The president was fully aware of the vocal criticism of the plan-that it was a scheme to drive the United States into war and also to put control of the economy in the hands of the military. At that time Roosevelt was also not primed to turn over the domestic economy to such an entity as the War Resources Board. Finally, Roosevelt had not tested the board and was unsure about the members' political loyalties, competence, and agendas. A combination of domestic politics and Roosevelt's personality forced the demise of the War Resources Board, the Industrial Mobilization Plan, and the War Resources Administration. (Note 20)