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The War Production Board (WPB) was established in 1942 by executive order of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The purpose of the board was to regulate the production and allocation of materials and fuel during World War II in the United States. It rationed such things as gasoline, heating oil, metals, rubber, and plastics. It was dissolved shortly after the defeat of Japan in 1945. FDR redirects here. ...
Combatants Allied Powers: United Kingdom Soviet Union United States Republic of China and others Axis Powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Chiang Kai-Shek Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tojo Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000,000 Total dead...
Powers and responsibilities
During World War II, the government needed to ensure that the armed forces and war industries received the resources for thier ever-growing need. The War Production Board (WPB) assumed that responsibility. The WPB decided which companies would convert from peacetime to wartime production and allocated raw materials to key industries. The WPB also organized nationwide drives to collect scrap iron, tin cans, paper, rags, and cooking fat for recycling into war goods. Across America, children scoured attics, cellars, garages, vacant lots, and back alleys looking for useful junk. During one five-month-long paper drive in Chicago, school children collected 36 million pounds of old paper, or about 65 pounds per child.
The heads of the War Production Board, Donald M. Nelson from 1942-1944 and Julias A. Krug from 1944 to 1945, had great and wide reaching control over the economic affairs of the United States. Over its three-year lifespan, the board supervised the manufacture of $185 billion worth of weapons and military supplies. It offered businesses lucrative contracts to switch over to war production, and large commercial farmers also had incentives for war production. Labor unions offered "no strike pledges" during the war, although few were kept, and taxes in general were raised, all in an effort to get the country prepared for war. New York investment banker Ferdinand Eberstadt was appointed chairman of the Army and Navy Munitions Board and vice chairman of the War Production Board. Eberstadt developed the organizational structure known as the "Controlled Materials Plan" that allowed the armed forces to prioritize their needs that in turn allowed the private sector to prioritize its production to meet the military's needs. A union (labor union in American English; trade union, sometimes trades union, in British English; either labour union or trade union in Canadian English) is a legal entity consisting of employees or workers having a common interest, such as all the assembly workers for one employer, or all the workers...
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Ferdinand Eberstadt (June 19, 1890 - November 11, 1969) was an American lawyer, investment banker and an important policy advisor to the United States government who was instrumental in the creation of the National Security Council. ...
The War Production Board was quickly dissolved in November 1945, after the defeat of Japan. The Civilian Production Administration was set up in order to take over the reconstruction aspect that the WPB would have overseen.
Soviet penetration Soviet intelligence penetrated the War Production Board, including several members of the Perlo group and its head Victor Perlo. The Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy in 1995 referred to this as a serious attack on American security by the Soviet Union, with considerable assistance from an enemy within. The head of the Silvermaster group, Nathan Gregory Silvermaster also penetrated the agency. The following list are American citizens who were engaged in espionage activities on behalf of the Soviet Union while working for the War Production Board. Its code name as deciphered in the Venona project is the "Depot". Obedinennoe Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie (or OGPU) (Combined State Political Directorate, also translated as All Union State Political Board) was the name of the secret police in the Soviet Union in one of the stages of its development. ...
The Perlo group fits into the Venona project information when transcript # 687 of 13 May 1944 is examined. ...
Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, also called the Moynihan Secrecy Commission, was a bipartisan commission in the United States created under Title IX of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1994 and 1995 (P.L. 103-236) to conduct an investigation into all matters in any...
Security measures taken to protect the Houses of Parliament in London, England. ...
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. ...
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. ...
The VENONA project was a long-running and highly secret collaboration between United States intelligence agencies and the United Kingdoms MI5 and GCHQ that involved the cryptanalysis of messages sent by several Soviet intelligence agencies. ...
Harold Glasser was an economist in the United States Department of the Treasury and spokesman on the affairs of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) `throughout its whole life and he had a `predominant voice in determining which countries should receive aid. ...
Harry Magdoff Henry Samuel Magdoff (August 21, 1913 – January 1, 2006), was a prominent American socialist commentator. ...
Victor Perlo was a member of the Ware group, and later headed a Washington DC cell of Soviet operatives. ...
William Remington with Soviet Spy Elizabeth Bentley William Walter Remington (October 25, 1917 - November 24, 1954) was a U.S. economist and civil servant whom the Venona transcripts confirm was a spy for Soviet Union[1]; he was later convicted on perjury charges. ...
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. ...
Effects The WPB, along with other wartime committees which regulated spending and production, helped to reduce the potential for economic catastrophe after the close of World War II.
In 1943, the WPB hired Harvard Business School Professor Thomas North Whitehead to tour the nation and find out how Americans were reacting to rationing and controls. Whitehead reported that "the good temper and common sense of most people under restrictions and vexations was really impressive... My own observation is that most people are behaving like patriotic, loyal citizens."
See also 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. ...
In 1918 President Woodrow Wilson established the National War Labor Board (NWLB) which was composed of representatives from business and labor. ...
The War Manpower Commission was a committee formed in April 1942, which governed the mobilization of the United States military. ...
Bold textThe Office of Price Administration (OPA) was established within the Office for Emergency Management by the United States Government by Executive Order 8875 on August 28, 1941. ...
Office of War Mobilization (OWM)- Federal agency headed by James F. Byrnes that coordinated all government agencies involved in the war effort during World War II. Mobilization in World War II brochure at the US Army Center of Military History. ...
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