Business: The Hidden Costs of the Viet Nam War

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Abraham Morganstern, research director of the Electrical Workers Union, believes American workers have become overly dependent on war work. He predicts that the transition to a peacetime economy, which President Nixon has talked much about lately, will be more difficult than is generally realized. For one thing, says Morgan stern, the backlogged demand for consumer goods is far less than it was just after World War II and the Korean War. Certainly there will be other demands—for pollution control, school construction, mass transit, urban development. Work on some of these problems has been delayed by the war, but the needs will be met only if peace brings a reordering of priorities and a redirection of the nation's resources.