SUPREME AUTHORITY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 May 1943, Page 3

SUPREME AUTHORITY

OVER WAR MOBILISATION. CREATED IN UNITED STATES. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, May 29. President Roosevelt has created a super-war mobilisation office with virtually total authority over the war effort on the home front, states a Washington message. Judge James Byrne has been appointed Director of the Office of War Mobilisation and is succeeded by Judge Fred Vinson. The White House revealed today that Judge Byrne and the War Mobilisation Committee would determine policy and unify the war agencies in work concerned with the production of military and civilian supplies of materials and products. The committee includes Colonel Frank Knox, Mr H. L. Stimson. Messrs. Harry Hopkins, Donald Nelson and Carl Vinson.

The creation of the War Mobilisation Board means that President Roosevelt has subordinated to Judge Byrne all the other “czars” such as Messrs. Nelson, McNutt, Eastmann, Ickes and Jeffres. The official whose power appears to have suffered most is Mr Nelson, head of the Wai' Production Board, who hitherto possessed the power to make a final decision on production procurement policies. It is not known whether he will stay in a subordinate position. Commenting on the establishment of the War Mobilisation Committee, the “New York Times” editorially says it could be a step forward of the first importance and a mark of inauguration of the “War Cabinet” which Press and Congress have often advocated. On paper, the new powers vested in Judge Byrnes and the committee are sweeping. However, if the reorganisation turns out to be like its predecessors, it will simply pile a new organisation on the top of a bewildering maze of competing and overlapping agencies,