Enter CMP

After weeks of crying wolf, Manly Fleischmann, boss of the National Production Authority, last week trotted out his Controlled Materials Plan. Its howl seemed to be worse than its bite. Starting July 1, CMP will tightly control all steel, copper and aluminum in defense production, thus put an end to the tangle of stopgap priorities NPA has used up to now. But civilian producers will be untouched by CMP under the present plan. They will be left to scramble for the metals that are left over, but whether the metals will be the bulk--or only a small part--of the supply is still up in the air.

Beginning May 1 and every three months from then on, said Fleischmann, defense producers will have to tell NPA in advance exactly how much steel, copper and aluminum will be needed in the next quarter. The Defense Production Administration* will make sure that the manufacturers will get what they need for defense by earmarking the metals for them. Instead of priorities, which were merely "hunting licenses" for scarce materials, manufacturers will get what Fleischmann calls "cashier's checks" to draw the metal they need from the set-aside supply. The present cuts in steel, zinc, copper, etc. for civilian producers (TiME, March 5) will be continued, may even be deepened when CMP is in effect.

NPA Administrator Fleischmann knows as well as anyone that thus far CMP is little more than a plan on paper. It is far from the tight, overall CMP of World War II, since no one has yet decided exactly how much metal will be siphoned away from civilian production for defense. Said Fleischmann: "The really tough decisions have not been made yet."

* Whose chief, 58-year-old William H. Harrison, resigned last week because of ill health.

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