Wahoo! Wahoo!

A wahoo bird, according to popular folklore, flies in ever decreasing circles until it swallows itself in utter confusion. Recently, many a businessman has thought that the nation's mobilizers were learning from the wahoo. Last week there was pretty convincing evidence from Washington that they were right.

P: NPA, which has been diligently cutting down on civilian use of copper and aluminum, suddenly handed out 27,500 additional tons of the metals to civilian-goods manufacturers. The military, NPA had discovered, could not use the metals.

P: Automakers, who only a few weeks ago were told that they would get enough metals to build only 800,000 units in the second quarter, got enough to build 1,000,000. Steel, long one of NPA's pet "shortages," is now so plentiful that NPA also handed out more to other civilian users; the Sharon Steel Corp. closed down two unneeded furnaces.

P: NPA, which has touted lead as one of the shortest raw materials, found it was in oversupply, removed its allocation controls.

These reversals were the result of a gigantic miscalculation by Washington's planners. All their previous warnings and civilian cuts had been based on a military budget of $85 billion for 1953, a figure rejected long ago by the President and termed unrealistic by even the most wishful thinkers in the Pentagon. With the military budget now at an estimated $50 billion and the whole program stretched out, all the previously projected military schedules were clearly out of whack. Yet it has taken the planners weeks to realize it. Last week Chief Mobilizer Charles E. Wilson said that because of the stretchout, military deliveries will reach a peak of only $3.5 billion a month next year, v. the original goal of $4 billion.

The way deliveries are going now, there is even grave doubt about when the new goal will be reached. In January, when deliveries totaled only $2 billion, the rate of increase was only half what was scheduled. And even though delivery schedules have been slashed by one-third in the past year, they are still not being met in such key items as electronics, medium tanks and even some ammunition. Mobilizers boast that they were only 4% behind schedule on planes in January and February, but many schedules are now so low that such statements mean little. In one category of combat aircraft, for instance, schedules were met "100%" in January. Meaning: four planes were delivered.

From such figures it seemed plain that Washington's planners are still overestimating raw-material requirements for military goods. When & if they are finally brought in line with the realities of military production, it looked as if there would be a flood of materials for civilian goods.

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