SPAB, OPM & Chaos

The Supply Priorities & Allocations Board--set up last August as a cure-all for the bickering and delay in the U.S. defense effort--has itself bogged down in a morass of divided authority and red tape.

This was the sad conclusion last week of many a defense expert. Intended as the brains of defense, SPAB has turned out to be just another feeble tentacle of the hydra-like monster. Donald Nelson, its executive director, has no vote in its councils. Moreover, Nelson has two conflicting jobs. As SPAB director he is boss of William Knudsen's Office of Pro duction Management. As OPM's priorities director, he is Knudsen's hired hand.

Nobody knows who is really the boss. Nobody knows where authority begins and ends among the various defense agencies: SPAB, OPM, Treasury, Agriculture, Economic Defense Board. As for the Army, Navy and Maritime Commission--only agencies empowered to spend defense money--they go their own sweet, independent way. Most defense experts think the Army and Navy by their old-fashioned procurement policies are sabotaging subcontracting and plant conversion. But nobody does anything about it.

Evidences of the chaos:

P: Out of $73,000,000,000 in defense appropriations available to be spent as quickly as possible, the Army, Navy and Maritime Commission have contracted for only $13,000,000,000--less than one-fifth.

P: Six weeks ago, SPAB voted to investigate and speed up the aluminum expansion which OPM announced last July, and for which all the contracts are not yet signed. OPM's William Knudsen conferred with Jesse Jones (whose lending powers make him a completely independent, one-man defense agency), reported simply that the expansion was moving as fast as possible. No further action was taken.

P: A little later SPAB voted to investigate copper production, got no further than a bicker over the prerogatives of SPAB and OPM's copper section.

P: OPM's orders pass through a half-dozen hands before they emerge, are signed by each one. Result: no one knows what official has made the decision or who is responsible for carrying it out.

Nearly ready for announcement is President Roosevelt's much-talked-of Victory Program, expected to raise defense expenditures to more than $100,000,000,000 by late 1943. This huge load cannot be handled by the U.S. without the topmost efficiency in procurement, plant conversion, subcontracting, control of raw materials. If the load is dumped on to the present defense machinery--without first clarifying authority, junking the weak parts, eliminating duplications--it is possible the machinery may break down completely.

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