The Office of Administrator of Export Control was established by Presidential Proclamation 2413, July 2, 1940, to administer export licensing provisions of the act of July 2, 1940 (54 Stat. 714). It was abolished by Presidential Executive Order 8900, September 15, 1941, and its functions were transferred to the Economic Defense Board, which had been established by Presidential Executive Order 8839, July 30, 1941, to develop policies and programs to strengthen U.S. international economic relations. The name was changed to Board of Economic Warfare by Presidential Executive Order 8982, December 17, 1941 and was abolished by Executive Order 9361, July 15, 1943, and the functions were transferred to the newly created Office of Economic Warfare, OEM, which also assumed control of U.S. Commercial Company, Rubber Development Corporation, Petroleum Reserves Corporation, and Export-Import Bank of Washington from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Consolidated into FEA, 1943. The Export-Import Bank of the United States (“Ex-Im Bank”, “Exim Bank” or “Eximbank”) is an independent bank established by Congress that finances or insures foreign purchases of U.S. goods for customers unable or unwilling to accept credit risk. ... The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was chartered under United States President Herbert Hoover in 1932. ...

Henry A. Wallace

Vice Presidenct Henry A. Wallace chaired the Economic Defense Board, the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board, and the Board of Economic Warfare as a member of President Roosevelts' secret "war cabinet". Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) served as the 33rd Vice President of the United States. ... President Roosevelt can refer to two different people who were President of the United States: Theodore Roosevelt Franklin D. Roosevelt It may also refer to the President Roosevelt ship, involved in a 1926 martime disaster. ...

Divided into an Office of Imports, Office of Exports, and Office of War Analysis, the Board of Economic Warfare (BEW) supported the Allied war effort through procurement of strategic resources. As chairman, Wallace freed himself to deal with long-term policy matters by delegating the day-to-day management of the BEW to Milo Perkins, an associate from the Department of Agriculture . Like many special boards created by President Roosevelt, the BEW came in for its share of interdepartmental bickering, rivalries, and conflicts of authority. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, also called the Agriculture Department, or USDA, is a Cabinet department of the United States Federal Government. ...

When Roosevelt signed an executive order in April 1942 allowing the BEW to negotiate contracts with foreign governments, Secretary of State Cordell Hull saw it as an attempt to create a second State Department. Wallace was convinced that the Latin American rubber supply could be increased if living standards of that region's rubber workers were raised to reduce the incidence of chronic malnutrition and malaria. He attempted to force negotiated contracts to provide for improvements to the Latin American infrastructure, with the United States funding half the cost of these programs. Wallace's acquisition of executive authority had been unpopular with the rank and file in Congress, and most members supported Hull, a former senator, in his attacks on the BEW and its chairman. Secretary Hull Cordell Hull ( October 2, 1871– July 23, 1955) was United States Secretary of State from 1933- 1944 under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945. ...

The BEW controversy climaxed in February 1943, when Wallace tried to place the purchasing authority of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) under the BEW's jurisdiction. Commerce Secretary Jesse Jones denounced Wallace's action. When Wallace retaliated by accusing Jones of delaying shipments of quinine to marines dying of malaria, the imbroglio became too hot for Roosevelt to ignore. The embattled vice president wrote to the president, asking for either complete vindication for his actions in the matter or relief of his duties as chairman of the BEW. Roosevelt responded on July 15, 1943, by dissolving the BEW and reconstituting its function under a new Foreign Economic Administration, headed by Leo Crowley, a known supporter of Jones.

Soviet espionage

The below list are all Americans who worked for the Board of Economic Warfare who were alleged, often by discredited witnesses, to have been secretly members of the CPUSA and had covert liaison with Soviet intelligence during their employment. The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is one of several Marxist-Leninist groups in the United States. ...

• Greg Silvermaster
• Joseph Bernstein
• T.A. Bisson
• Frank Coe
• Jack Fahy
• Charles Flato
• Jane Foster
• Michael Greenberg
• Mary Jane Keeney
• Allen Rosenberg
• Nathaniel Weyl

Nathan Gregory Silvermaster or Greg Silvermaster was identified by Elizabeth Bentley, a long-time “courier for the Russian Secret Police in America,” as the head of the Washington DC-based Silvermaster Soviet spy ring. ... Joseph Bernstein recruited his fellow Communist T.A. Bisson who had stopped working at the Board of Economic Warfare (BEW) and began working in the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) and in the editorial offices of Bernstein’s periodical Amerasia. ... Thomas Arthur Bisson was an Asia specialist working in the World War II Bureau of Economic Warfare (BEW) and later the Institute for Pacific Relations (IPR). ... Virginius Frank Coe was the Director of Monetary Research in the United States Department of the Treasury. ... Jack Bradley Fahy was an American citizen who spied for Soviet Naval GRU during World War II. Soviet naval intelligence was much smaller than the Soviet armys GRU, and only a fraction of the size of the KGB. Fahy was born in Washington D.C. in 1908, grew up... Charles Flato also Charles Floto (May 27, 1908 - January 1, 1984) was a writer, American Communist Party member and a Soviet agent. ... Jane Foster was a member of the Communist Party and worked for the Board of Economic Warfare in 1942. ... Michael Greenberg (born 28 November 1914, died 19 April, 1992), a scholar of Chinese economics and history, was alleged to have provided a Soviet spy with information during the 1940s, but was never charged with espionage. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Allan Robert Rosenberg was born 1909, graduated from the Boston Latin School in 1926, Harvard in 1930 and harvard law School in 1936. ... Nathaniel Weyl (born 20 July 1910, died 13 April 2005) was the son of Walter Weyl, an editor of the New Republic. ...

See also

• History of Soviet espionage in the United States