The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-09-16

~ AO SAaA0e
 The entire priorlties section in Office of Production Management setup is being given a thorough working over. Nelson, knowing the weaknesses and faults of the old OPM, now under his new authority as executive director of Supply Prio- rites and Allocations Board, and also as director of the division of priorities in OPM,, has simply gone to work to overhaul the whole she- bang. t~5t.
 The first week was cleanup week, when on a dramatic Saturday aft- ernoon everything was taken from the tops of some 800 desks in the priorities section, analysed by three rough, tough mail order experts from Sears-R Roehuck, and handed back to the astonished defense exe- cutives with curt orders to get all the mail answered within 48 hours and to keep handling all prioritics applications within 48 hours from time of receipt-or else.
 UNWINDS RED TAPE
 The second week is organization week. Nelson is going over his staff with a pair of jackstraw hooks, and any personnel that can be spared without disturbing the organization pile will be put to more useful effort or dismissed. Consequently, heads are rolling in OpM these days, and by some counts 6 hundred or more of the red tape underlings who had wound themselves around the prio- rites bottleneck may soon be buy ing one-way tickets for home.
 The third week is to be require. ments week. No one has ever sat down figured out the overall bill of goods shooting irons and ball ammunition needed for the defense effort. Instead, one set of require- ments has been piled pell-mell on top of the last one until now the or. der sheet is a completely balled up set of unspecific specifications. Nell sons idea Is merely to get Army, Navy, lease-lend, hemisphere de- fense, home defense and civilian re- quirements tabulated and added up. When that is done, SPAB, OPM, and the country at large will know just how much steel, aluminium, rubber and other raw materials will be needed.
 Don Nelson's own dual personal ity, first as director of priorities un. der OPM, and then as executive de rector of SPAB over OPM, may be little confusing, but when you put this into a parallel of corporation organization for perspective, 1t be. comes little clearer. As director of priorities, Nelson is c kind of sec. ond vice president-one of seven second vice presidents, in fact, the other six being Hillman for labor, Henderson for civilian allocations, Bait for raw materials, Harrison for production, MacKeachie for pur. chases and plant sites, and Floyd Odlum for contract distribution. Over these seven is William s. Knudsen, @ kind of first vice pres- ident as head of OPM. But above the OPM is SPAB, and there Nell son Is chairman of the board of di- rectors-in other words, boss.
 BARUCH BLAST BACKFIREs
 Bernard M. Baruch, chairman o :? the old war industries board in the last war and still one of the Pres- ident's closest advisers on defense matters, was all set to condemn this latest defense reorganization. AS a matter of fact Baruch did issue one blast against 1t. talking to reporters on the White House steps after a long conference with the President. That was before Nelson had talked to Baruch. Afterward, Baruch changed his tune somewhat, for Nelson had apparently sold him.
 What Baruch has always insisted on Is that there be one man at the top in charge of all defense activ- tiles and with authority to make de. cisions. It was Baruch's original idea that the new SPAB organi2a- ton did not meet his requirements. Nelson pointed out to him, however, that even in the last war, Baruch had over him a war industries board to which he was responsible.
 It is Nelson's contention that SPAB is parallel. Nelson will take questions to his board, consisting of Vice President Wallace, Hopkins, Henderson, Knox, Stimson, Knudsen and Hillman. The board will make the policy and Nelson will carry 1t out. If he keeps carrying 1t out the way he has in his scheduled three weeks reorganization, the defense effort is far from hopeless. In fact, it will hegin fn get places fast.