Facts at Last

The new Supply Priorities & Allocations Board did something last week which, if done sooner, would have saved the U.S. defense program months of bewilderment, bogglement and bickering. To its executive director, Donald Nelson, it assigned the all-important, first-things-first task of drawing up a program blueprint.

Nelson's survey will be designed to answer two questions which--though elementary--have never been answered before: 1) What does the U.S. have to produce to defend itself, to aid Britain, China, Russia and Latin America, and to satisfy its own minimum civilian needs at the same time? 2) How much does this represent in terms of raw materials, machinery, man power?

Lack of such information, gathered and used by one responsible agency, caused the endless, fruitless arguments which snarled the whole first year of defense. The lack accounted for steel and aluminum shortages which cropped up right after the Office of Production Management had declared them impossible. It created a long crossfire between Transportation Commissioner Ralph Budd, who thought rail capacity was lovely, and New Deal economists who thought it was lousy. It was still apparent last week in such unintelligible mazes as the Eastern Seaboard oil situation (see p. 12).

Coupled with SPAB's inventory survey (TIME, Sept. 8), the new blueprint of requirements should provide the first full answer to the question of what the U.S. has and what it needs. Last week SPAB further improved its inventory survey: it wangled a promise from the Army and Navy to release the same type of information which is demanded of industry. This will enable SPAB either to relieve or to remedy businessmen's growing suspicions that the armed forces are the worst hoarders of all.

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