Imperial Valley press., 1942-09-04
CAPITAL TALKS
by
Peter
Edison


Office of War Information set-ul
setup under Elmer Davis hasn't ye
been able to whip up budget tina
would iell, though the organiza
ton has been functioning for more
than two months.
The administrative end of th'
organization under NJ. S. Eisen'
hover. brother of the general
knocked off a three-monthS' trla
balance recently and found thai
the total cost of operations - fol
personnel. travel, time on the air
movies, posters, publications, prop
aganda and paper matches to drop
from bombers-would run to about
s78 million. This divides roughly
into s33 million for domestic op-
erations and s4.5 million for over
seas operations.
The Owl hasten to warn you,
however. not TO start multiplying
those figures by four to get the
cost of their operations for year
The costs might not run that high.
On the other hand, they might run
higher. A purely unofficial guess
as to the maximum would be $l5
million a year for domestic opera
tions. s25 million for overseas OPP
erationS.
owl was created, as you may
recall, by a June shotgun we'd
ding of the fires, winds and
waters of the old Office OF
Government Reports, the Of
flee of Facts and Figures, the
foreign information division
half of Col. william j. DOno-
vans old Office of the Co-Ordi-
nator of Information, and the
information section of the Of
flee of Emergency Manage
ment. which is the holding
company for all defense organi-
cations.
For the last 10 weeks, Owl has
been trasferring personnel all over
the place, ironing out overlapping
functions of two or more bureaus,
going through the typical WASH
ington labor pains that a new par
ent organization always expert
ences with its first born.
office of War Information to-
dav admits that it has an active
fulltime personnel of around 35OC
people, of whom some 1850 are as
signed to handling government in
formation for domestic consump-
tion. remaining 1850 preparing the
governments propaganda for con-
sumption overseas The payroll for
the whole $500 has run about $780,
900 a month.
But that $500 does not in
clude the approximately 100
Army officers and 100 civilians
i'm the Army's Washington Bu-
|
so to 100 officers, sailors and
civilians in the Navy Depart
ment's Office of Public Rela-
tions, the 160 people transfer
red from the old OEM infor-
nation setup to Office of Price
Administration, War Produc
ton. War Production Board
and similar organ cations
which now have their own in
dependent public re tons
staffs, clearing their releases
through OWL.
1t does not include the 12O peo-
pie on the public relations staff OF
Nelson Rockefeller'S Office OF In
ter-American Affairs, which was
not consolidated with the other
four organizations in the creation
OF Owl. Add all those in and you
get a total of more than 1000 peo-
ole working on this war informa-
tion job.
And that does not include the
2500 people who work full time
nor the 10000 people who work
part time-for a total of 5000 man.
years, according to the last Budget
Bureau survey for Congress.
Owl is making a start at getting
all those non-War agency public
relations activities whitfield down
to size.
The domestic part of the show
which is of most interest to Amer
ican readers and listeners, is un-
der Gardner Cowles, Jr, of Des
Moines, who is going to the Mid
die East and the Orient with Wen
dell Willkie. In Cowles' absence
another smart young newspaper
operator, Paul c. Smith of Sar
Francisco, has just taken over.
Under Smith there is an array
OF talent and personalities that Is
probably more diversified than any
writing factory assembly line evel
put together outside a major stu
dio in Hollywood. There is a policy
development branch under Archi-
bald MacLeish, reporting directly
to Elmer Davis, keeping in touch
with other department of the gov
ernment through five liaison men
and thinking up ideas for the res
of Owl to carry out.
Directly under Smith are
eight bureaus organized to pro-
...r,ndi,a vou through every