Storm Signals in WPB

Production Boss Donald Marr Nelson's "get tough" policy had landed him in a cyclone center. Good-natured Donald Nelson had brought some really tough men into the high councils of his War Production Board (TIME, Sept. 28). Now he found that they were much tougher than he--and hell was on the verge of popping.

His new vice chairman, Banker Ferdinand M. Eberstadt, had swept into WPB like a high-pressure area into a vacuum. Energetic Ferd Eberstadt wanted results, right away. He drew up a new raw-materials allocation plan (see p. 90). He demanded that WPB's civilian-supply men quit stalling on their long-delayed program for nonwar requirements. WPB's lethargic old high command worked too slowly to suit him. There were bruised feelings and ragged tempers.

Donald Nelson did not show the decisiveness that might have stopped the trouble. Chief controversy raged over one of Eberstadt's appointments: Thomas R. Armstrong, a Standard Oil Co. of N.J. executive, to be chief of his foreign-requirements liaison branch. Because Armstrong was connected in Latin American minds with the fight against Mexico's oil expropriation a howl went up from the State Department, from the Board of Economic Warfare, from Nelson A. Rockefeller's Committee on Inter-American Affairs.

Eberstadt stuck stubbornly to his ground. In untangling WPB organization and getting results, he had done a fine job. In appointing Armstrong, he had stood alone against Washington's best advice. But Donald Nelson had neither backed him to the hilt when he was right nor stopped him when he was wrong.

WPB's other new vice chairman and strong man, former General Electric President Charles Edward Wilson, ran into so much trouble last week that he was close to resigning. He had orders from Donald Nelson to take full charge of aircraft production, which has coasted along on a laissez-faire basis. But Nelson did not take stern action to whip the Army & Navy into line. He merely called in some military men for "discussions." Sharp differences of opinion arose; Wilson suddenly discovered that he had full responsibility without full power.

At week's end, the storm had not yet broken. Ferd Eberstadt was still determined to do a job that needed doing; Charlie Wilson no longer thought of quitting. And the new WPB made progress--perhaps faster than any of the many defense and war agencies had before.

But the storm signals were still up. For Donald Nelson, the situation was rapidly getting out of hand. In the big wind sure to come some time, he would have to find a firm anchor or be blown away.

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