McNair Paper Number 50, Chapter 8, Notes, August 1996
1. Herman M. Somers, Presidential Agency: The Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950), 35.
2. One of these was Roosevelt himself. Herman Somers argues that the creation of the Office of War Mobilization was neither driven by personality conflicts nor by military-civilian rivalry. It was that no one short of the president could make decisions across so many agencies and departments, therefore an assistant president who could do so was essential if Roosevelt was to focus on grand strategy. "The government lacked a place where, within a reasonable time, a synthesis could emerge from the struggle" (Somers 38-40). Koistinen argues that Roosevelt created the Office of War Mobilization because he was suffering heat from the [John H.] Tolan Committee (House Select Committee Investigating National Defense and the[James E.] Murray Committee (Senate Special Committee to Study and Survey the Problems of American Small Business). These committees called for centralization of the mobilization process. Koistinen, without documentation, asserts that Byrnes's "most important task became that of guarding the industry-military production team that had come to dominate the [War Production Board]. This protective role was clearly evident in two areas: the mobilization of manpower and the controversy over reconversion." In the case of the former, Koistinen argues, Byrnes acted to ensure that "industry and the armed services needs would be met without a large labor influence," and on the latter Byrnes generally sided with the military to delay it as long as possible [Paul A. C. Koistinen, "Warfare and Power Relations in America: Mobilizing the World War II Economy," in James Titus, ed., 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), 99].
3. Emergency Management of the National Economy: Vol. XIX Administration of Mobilization WWII, hereafter cited as ICAF (Washington, DC: Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 1954), 119-123. On 25 May 1943 the New York Times editorialized: "Intramural bickering and inter-bureau politics are moving to a new high point in bitterness with energy that might be devoted to outdoing the Axis being turned by subordinate officials to undoing one another" (Somers, 33, 34). Nelson underwent the humiliation of one of his division heads, Joseph Weiner, Civilian Supply Division, testifying before a congressional committee against Nelson's leadership and administration. Nelson had recently fired one his most senior officials, Ferdinand Eberstadt who had come to the War Production Board from the Army and Navy Munitions Board, and many people from the War Production Board resigned in sympathy with Eberstadt (who was seen by Nelson as undermining his position by favoring military control of industrial mobilization). Somers continues, by mid-1943 "the conflicts among agencies . . . reached the stage of public scandal."
4. The situation demanded the creation of the arms czar that Roosevelt had avoided since August 1939. It was not the president's style to appoint an assistant president, and the Congress usually avoided permitting such powers to unelected officials, but when the Office of War Mobilization was created, most people applauded because the need for this type of authority had become widely recognized (Somers, 5). Roosevelt wrote Byrnes in January 1944 in answer to a request by Byrnes to have his powers augmented by being permitted to take over the War Production Board. The president turned him down, but told him: "As you know you are indispensable on the handling and the actual settling of scores of problems which are constantly arising." [David Robertson, Sly and Able: A Political Biography of James F. Byrnes (New York: Norton, 1994), 322; Executive Order 9347, 27 May 1943, cited in Somers, 47-51].
5. ICAF, 104-110. Byrnes wrote: "The fight to hold wages and prices was a bitter struggle. It was a struggle against the desires of the producers to obtain increased prices and of workers to win increased wages. Senators, representatives, labor leaders, businessmen, farmers, and spokesmen for groups of all kinds would present their special case. Whenever they could, they would go to the President to present their complaint" [James F. Byrnes, Speaking Frankly (New York: Harper Brothers, 1947), 19]. The Bureau of the Budget was heavily involved in economic policy too, and its powers were vastly expanded during the war. See Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 93-97. But the relationship between the Office of Economic Stabilization and the Bureau of the Budget was not friction free. Byrnes inevitably engaged in formulating policy that, prior to his appointment, was the province of the Budget Bureau, and Bureau Director Harold D. Smith challenged Byrnes's authority. But Byrnes had proximity-being located in the White House. He was also a long-time Roosevelt confidant-one who Roosevelt liked to call a BC-that is, a Roosevelt supporter for the Democratic party nomination for president Before the 1932 national democratic convention in Chicago.
6. Somers, 35. Quote is from the Byrnes drafted Executive Order 9250, 3 October 1942. Byrnes, 17. Byrnes succeeded in that inflation was dampened better than in previous wars. While the cost of living had risen rapidly in the first year of the war, from April 1943 to September 1945 it rose only another 4.8 percent. Koistinen notes that farmers and industrialists greatly benefited from the war, but that laborers made the least gains. Koistinen 98, 99. Byrnes was really at home in this venue. He had overseen the legislative passage of the Administrative Reorganization Act of 1939 which permitted Roosevelt to establish dozens of agencies and bureaus like the Office of Economic Stabilization, the War Production Board and the Office of War Mobilization before and during World War II. The law removed from congressional oversight and centralized within the Executive Office agencies essential for the war effort. See David Robertson, Sly and Able: A Political Biography of James F. Byrnes (New York: Norton, 1994), 290.
12. Somers, 51-54, 80-81; Marvin A. Kreidberg and Merton G. Henry, History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army, 1775-1945 (Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Army, 1955), 687.
13. Somers, 65. Milward argues that decisions to be made on priorities were decisions of extreme significance, and these could only be made by "possessors of great political power." To make such decisions one had to have full knowledge of the circumstances leading to a priorities dispute, one had to have under one's control the administrative machinery to carry out a priorities decision, and one had to have the will to make such essential decisions. Byrnes had all these. He was indeed the "supreme umpire over the powerful" [Alan Milward, War, Economy and Society: 1939-1945 (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979], 110-113. Byrnes's biographer notes that he received from the president "additional authority to arbitrate without further presidential appeal any disputes arising among the numerous war production agencies and other civilian defense agencies headquartered in Washington. . .. [and Roosevelt was] happy to be relieved of the political and logistical responsibilities of the home front . . . ." Byrnes intended the Office of War Mobilization to be a "one man show" (Robertson, 327).
14. Somers, 137; Harold G. Vatter, The United States Economy in World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 82-83. Herman Somers, the scholar most knowledgeable about the Office of War Mobilization, thinks that the "allegation that the military wished to 'take over' the economy" is "questionable" and that Byrnes with the Joint Chiefs of Staff maintained a "clear civilian dominance over all home front issues." Somers cites a dispute between Byrnes and the Navy late in the war (March 1945) over the number of aircraft that were needed to complete the war. The Army Air Forces had reduced their demand by almost 44,000 airplanes, saving more than $7.5 billion, but the Navy cut very little. Both Byrnes and Vinson found the Navy's insistence untenable (Somers 122-124, 133-134). The Joint Chiefs in January 1945 demanded 40 additional tankers. The Joint Production Survey Committee said the number of tankers requested was excessive. The Joint Chiefs overruled the Joint Production Survey Committee, but the Office of War Mobilization denied the Chiefs' petition. Somers, 130-132. In April 1945 the Joint Chiefs tried to influence shipping priorities in terms of the ratio of space allocated for civilian and military goods. Vinson wrote Admiral William D. Leahy that the "responsibility for making final decisions as to the proper balance in the employment of manpower and production resources to obtain the maximum war effort rests with this office" (Somers 128-130). The Navy in January 1945, probably at some prodding by representatives and senators with shipyards in their districts and states, requested an additional 84 ships (644,000 tons) beyond the 1945 program. The Navy went directly to the president, bypassing the Office of War Mobilization. Byrnes counseled the president to cancel most of the order, and Roosevelt eliminated 72 ships (514,000 tons) saving$1.5 billion (Somers, 125-128).
16. Somers, 200-202. The Congress was seriously concerned with this aspect of economic planning, and it was a major factor in the push for orderly demobilization and in fact legislated the issue because of their political concerns. Representatives and senators called for planning on such elements as orderly contract termination, surplus disposal, orderly service men and women demobilization, relaxation of wartime controls, curtailment of wartime production, resumption of banned civilian goods. Congress had surrendered powers to the president because of the war emergency, and wanted to take these back. Byrnes was sensitive and set up the Bernard Baruch-John Hancock postwar planning unit in the summer of 1943. These two gurus produced a report in February 1944 stressing the need for congressional leadership in postwar reconversion. The Congress passed the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion Act on 3 October 1944 granting vast powers to the Office and its director, calling on Byrnes, subject to the president's direction, to "formulate or have formulated reconversion plans . . . issue orders and regulations to executive agencies regarding reconversion plans" which would have the force of law, recommend reconversion legislation, determine which war agencies should be simplified, consolidated or eliminated, submit quarterly reports to Congress and the president on post-war adjustment, "determine whether any prime contract for war production scheduled for termination, should be continued either to benefit the government or avoid substantial physical injury to a plant or property." Somers 76-78.
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