The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-07-27

Peter Edsoa der divorcing
Mr.. Wallace from his beloved Board
| of Economic Warfare are now re-
portedly going around wondering
how they really could have been SO
| cruel to Henry who is, after all, No.
2 man in the New Deal. Early reac-
ton was that Henry had been
ditched. That sentiment is changing
now. Henry must be made to look
good
Secondly, it is going to take
months to effect the reorganization
of the Wallace and Jones govern
ment agencies which the executive
order SO glibly shuffled about. So
vast and SO complicated have these
multi billion dollar government
agencies become that there are few
people even in government who
know what they are doing.
COLOSSAL COMPLICATIONS
The foreign operations of the Re-
construction Finance Corporation
subsidiaries, for instance, are unbe-
lievably colossal, and all bound up
with domestic operations in the
same commodities. Switching con-
troll and management of these cor
porationS is the equivalent of a
series of international big business
deals which would take private in
dustry months and months to nego-
tate. Frankly, some of the govern
ment executives charged with the
responsibility of making these re-
organizations don't know how they
are to be effected.
To get some conception Of what
this order means, it is necessary to
invent a parallel. Imagine, then, that
one of the big corporations like
General Electric or General Motors
were ordered to transfer all their
foreign business to another COM
pnay overnight. This switching
around of government agencies is
bigger deal by far than both the
two examples would be, together, for
the reason that the RFC subsidiary
operations are in the cases of some
so items monopoly trading rights.
purchase of Cuba's entire sugar CROP
import of all wool from Australia
New Zealand and South Africa for
distribution to both the United
Kingdom and the United States, the
import of all strategic materials
from Russia, and so on and so on
and SO on.
Third, Congress is going to have a
look at all these goings on. Senator
Harry Flood ByrdS committee on
the reduction of non-esSential fed
eral expenditures has previously in
dictated a desire to look over RFC
operations. The Presidents order
transferring the foreign part of this
show to the new Office of Economic
Warfare under Leo T. Crowley speci-
flying that RFC should continue to
finance them until DEW could get
its own appropriation from Con-
gress simply means that this whole
business will have to be opened up
and some of it is so fantastic that
it will not bear scrutiny because of
the tremendous multi-million dollar
losses which it necessarily involves.
STATE DEPARTMENT
TAKES OVER
Fourth, and most important of all,
the reshuffling of these government
operations was a tremendous vic
tory for Secretary Cordell Hull and
the State Department, by reason of
the fact that the policy making on
all military foreign operations
of all government agencies is now
to be managed by the State Depart
ment and hereafter all loose ends
are to be tied together through the
foreign service officers of the State
Department.
Secretary Hull has been preparing
for this step for long time. Two
years ago, almost without notice, a
new Board of Economic Operations
was created in the State Department
under Assistant Secretary Dean
Acheson. Some time later, the de-
partment established a new post,
Counselor of Embassy for Economic
Affairs First appointments to this
new position were made In the
Latin American capitals. Extension
of Board of Economic Operations to
other countries means simply that
the State Department is going to
be boss. Also 1T means that Foreign
Service officers of the State Depart
ment can no longer be just diplo-
mats. From here on they will have
to be business men as well.