The U.S. At War: Actions

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A Supreme War Council, or Allied Command, or World G.H.Q. to be set up in Washington was a rumor that ran the streets there last week. Geography made the location inevitable; the productive power of the U.S. clinched it. The President was thinking about the problem: a stream of dope stories and one White House statement made certain that plans for such a council "of joint planning for unity of action" was under way. "High personages'' from other anti-Axis nations were reported on the ocean or in the skies, Washington-bound.

The President was also reported to be thinking about setting up a National War Council, to consist of a few top military men and civilians, with broad executive powers to order coordination of the domestic war effort on the military, industrial, civilian and labor fronts.

Under consideration was a plan to consolidate all Allied forces—Army, Navy, Air forces of the British, Dutch, Chinese, U.S. and possibly Russian—under one supreme amphibious commander in each great geographical area. For instance: to make General Douglas MacArthur commander of all anti-Axis forces in the South Pacific, his command to stretch from Rangoon to Honolulu (see p. 16).

Meantime, throughout the Government men snapped orders and made decisions that changed or would change the lives of millions:

> To the President went the powers of a war dictator when Congress re-enacted a version of Woodrow Wilson's World War I powers, empowering him to reorganize all Government departments (except the General Accounting Office); establish censorship; take over all alien property (about $7,000,000,000 worth); and to award war contracts without competitive bidding.

> House & Senate passed, and the President received for signature, a national draft act registering every man in the U.S. from age 18 to 65, making available to the Army every able-bodied man from 20 to 44.

> The President appointed the Associated Press's level-headed Executive News Editor, Byron Price, as Director of Censorship (see p. 60).

> Out of Washington, to which stream some 6,000 war workers a month, were ordered 10,000 Federal employes in twelve agencies, which must be relocated in New York City (Patent Office), Philadelphia (SEC), Chicago (Railroad Retirement Board), St. Louis (FSA, REA), and Pittsburgh (Labor Department's Wage & Hour Division). Other shifts will follow.

> The U.S. and France made a standstill diplomatic agreement: as long as Vichy-france remains as neutral as it is now—i.e., no transfer of the French Fleet to Adolf Hitler—Martinique, Vichy's island in the midst of the U.S. Caribbean bases chain, would be untouched by the U.S.

> The President created a national industrial recruiting agency, to merge all State and territorial affiliates of the U.S. Employment Service. Object: full registration, and coordinated recruiting of U.S. labor in order to maintain war production.