Overall Coordinator

The U.S. mobilization effort has been without a permanent overall boss since Charles E. Wilson quit last March as director of the Office of Defense Mobilization. Last week Harry Truman moved to fill the gap. After accepting the resignation of Manly Fleischmann, boss of the Defense Production Administration, who wants to go back to private law practice, he named Henry H. ("Joe") Fowler, head of the National Production Authority, to take over from Fleischmann.

Fowler, 43, Virginia-born, a product of Yale Law School and a seasoned lawyer for New Deal and Fair Deal agencies, will head both DPA and NPA (which have been arms of ODM). "A single production head," explained Truman, "now promises to be the most effective means of overall coordination of mobilization production." Fowler believes the job is only half done; industrial expansion, arms output and stockpiling have still a tough way to go. He may not be around to see the program through its three-year buildup, but he foresees another need after the buildup is in hand. Then, he says, "we must make a transition . . . to a plateau of sustained mobilization effort, and maintain it into the indefinite future."

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