No Fuss, No Muss

The Defense Department last week totted up what it has spent or earmarked for arms since the shooting started in Korea. The total: $6 billion or almost $1 billion a week. But unlike the frantic days before World War II, the orders have been placed with little fuss or muss. Businessmen who hustled to Washington for defense contracts have been asked to return home and deal with regional procurement offices, which are doing most of the buying.

It now looks as though the war effort's present effect on civilian production would be less than feared in many industries, since much of the defense cash will not be spent for many months. Radio and television makers, who had expected to be disrupted by immense defense orders, found no such thing happening. A few big electronic orders were placed last week: Emerson Electric Manufacturing Co. got a $100 million Air Force & Navy contract; Motorola, Inc. raced to complete a rush order for two-way radios for Army jeeps. But President Robert C. Sprague of the Radio-Television Manufacturers Association predicted that the industry would turn out 6,000,000 TV sets this year, 20% more than it had planned.

Careful Expansion. Even the aircraft industry, which had a $4.2 billion bite of defense funds, was revving up slowly. In Wichita, Boeing Airplane announced it would increase its 10,000-man work force by 50%, but so far has hired only 908 workers, mostly highly skilled mechanics. In other plants there was no stampede, just careful expansion.

For the most part, the Defense Department preferred not to discuss the orders it was placing, but some familiar names popped up in the news. Manhattan Dressmaker Henry Rosenfeld, who made uniforms for World War II Marine women, last week got an order for 244,000 summer uniforms for women reserves called to active duty. Nesco, Inc., maker of the five-gallon gasoline "blitz cans" familiar to U.S. soldiers the world over, prepared to turn out 150,000 a month on the later of two contracts totaling $1,700,000. The Switlik Parachute Co. had been told to double its plant facilities, speed production of a $5,000,000 contract for 50,000 Air Force parachutes. American Car & Foundry began making tanks.

Small Bite. General Motors' Cadillac Division took possession of Cleveland's Fisher bomber plant this week, began to plan production lines for tanks. But total defense orders in the whole Detroit area are expected to reach only $400 million by year's end--or about 5% of General Motors' annual rate of sales.

Last week, Major General J. K. Christmas, Army G-4 procurement chief, said that next year's military requirements would use no more than 6% of the 100-million-ton U.S. steel output. While that is about four times the steel sold last year for military use, Inland Steel Co.'s President Clarence Randall thought that the industry's 6,000,000-ton expansion program would take care of most military demands. Said he this week: "We can do the war job and still give the country as much [civilian] steel as it had altogether in 1940."

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