Arsenal of World War II: The Political Economy of American Warfare, 1940-1945 (review)

Like the endeavor it examines, Arsenal of World War II is massive, impressive, and contentious. Paul A. C. Koistinen describes this fourth volume of his series on the "political economy of American warfare" as "the first comprehensive analysis of economic mobilization for World War II . . . since the official histories" (p. 6) published by the Bureau of the Budget and the successor to the War Production Board in the 1940s. He focuses on the National Defense Advisory Commission, the Office of Production Management, the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board, and the War Production Board (WPB). He also devotes significant space to the military's supply and procurement systems. Koistinen acknowledges that he gives less attention to other wartime agencies (although labor supply and relations receive respectable coverage). This is primarily a detailed and deeply analytical history of the Washington struggle among New Deal supporters, big business, and the military over industrial mobilization. Lucidly written and based largely on research in a tremendous volume of archival material, it is the best overall treatment of its subject, despite some contestable interpretations.

The major theme is "the growing mobilization alliance between the corporate community, whose members predominated in the WPB and its forerunners, and the armed services, which were responsible for most wartime demand" (p. 8). Protecting peacetime corporate interests, dollar-a-year men in the emergency agencies tended to drag their feet on mobilization in 1940– 41, while New Dealers urged an all-out effort. Once U.S. entry into the war made production for the military clearly profitable, corporate mobilizers shifted their stance. They increasingly joined forces with the military to control mobilization so that it served both industrial and military interests. Reform elements in the WPB ultimately were unable to protect the civilian economy adequately and were squeezed out of power.

Koistinen's analysis of the agencies' workings is frequently sharp and insightful. His treatment of the conflicts of interest in industry advisory committees composed of business executives is particularly clear-eyed. With masterly concision he examines the merits, drawbacks, and political-economic implications of the WPB's key Controlled Materials Plan and its antecedents—the most nuanced brief treatment in the literature. Appropriately, he lauds the efforts of Robert R. Nathan and other New Dealers to move the military toward a more realistic approach to the overall capacity and needs of the national economy. The strong effort here to rehabilitate the reputation of Donald M. Nelson, WPB chairman, will be influential. But the stridency with which Koistinen assails the top civilian War Department officials as militarists may reduce his arguments' persuasiveness for some. And the statement that "the military's officer corps, and, below it, noncommissioned officers, constituted a career, policymaking elite" (p. 337) brings into question the level of military sophistication being employed.

The research in military records is thin, a shortcoming partially assuaged by the diligent use of the secondary literature. Coverage of events within the military is only at a high level, with almost no examination of the effects of a massive influx of officers from civilian life into the military's procurement apparatuses. In pursuing the intersection of industrial and military interests, Koistinen is often perceptive, although much of his evidence contradicts his claims for the influence of prewar military-industrial planning. A much more thorough investigation of wartime conflict between the two sectors, and its significance, remains to be done. John R. Rumbarger touched on some of the disagreements in an article on the making of the official WPB history (Public Historian, Spring 1984) that is a worthy companion to Koistinen's excellent bibliographical essay (and belies Koistinen's claim for the uniqueness of his essay). Though long engaged on his subject, Koistinen apparently conducted no interviews, which would have deepened the human drama. One will not learn here, for example, that Nathan deeply...