GOVERNMENT: Low Gear

The Senate’s hard-hitting Mead Committee (onetime Truman Committee) had harsh words this week for the way the reconversion program is being run. In its fourth annual report, the committee said flatly that the change to civilian goods is not proceeding as rapidly as it should. There is “delay in announcing and making cutbacks, lack of both raw and semifinished materials and tools, insufficient in formation available for industry to make plans far enough in advance, and lack of manpower in some key places. . . .” The committee laid some of the blame on former OWMBoss Fred Vinson (now Secretary of the Treasury). His office, said the committee, had spent too much time laying down broad policy, “is not accessible to a man with a problem.” It also gave the back of its hand to the Army: “The Army is continuing to utilize its manpower wastefully. In addition it is setting up huge reserves of troops which it cannot hope to employ in the Pacific war except in the event of an almost disastrous military setback. . . . The Army should give serious consideration to making available to industry now the relatively few men whose efforts would make possible the employment of great numbers in the near future. . . .”