Word: ferde
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...square-jawed Ferd Eberstadt (TIME, March 1); the Palace Guard that engineered his ouster was for the moment appeased. For Boss Donald Nelson war production looked 20% rosier than it did the week before. And Charles Edward Wilson, who had suffered under WPB's divided authority and mind, at last could consolidate his position...
Palace Coup. Behind Charley Wilson stood a Palace Guard. A small but potent group of original New Dealers, they looked with alarm on any upsurge of military influence. They called Ferd Eberstadt a front for the services, set out to get his scalp. In other days they would have called Wilson a front for big business, but now they rallied round...
...business enterprise, materials control and production should be Siamese twins. Not so in Washington. Week ago Donald Nelson touched off the row when he turned over to Wilson (on Wilson's threat of resignation) certain all-important "industry divisions" which Ferd Eberstadt has labored long and hard to build up. Function of these divisions is to see to it that, after raw materials have been divided up between the Army and Navy and other contenders, they flow smoothly to prime contractors and vital component parts manufacturers. They are the vital agencies on which WPB's control...
Last summer, however, a reasonable compromise seemed to have been hit when Ferd Eberstadt, who had served the Army and Navy well as chairman of their Joint Munitions Board, was switched over to WPB. Promptly he set up his Controlled Materials Plan (TIME, Nov. 9) and attempted to give his authority over raw materials practical force by staffing his production divisions with top-flight talent. To top off the new program Nelson, with Eberstadt's approval, called in Charlie Wilson, who should have become an expediter of particularly serious production bottlenecks...
Instead, Wilson was given the title of chief of production-a high-sounding assignment which technically made him responsible for just about the whole U.S. war economy. At the same time many an ardent New Dealer either within the WPB or without it, who has little love for Ferd Eberstadt's tough realism, urged Nelson into checking Eberstadt's growing power. Finally came the current explosion, partly inevitable, partly the result of clashing authorities over which no one could or would assume a firm control. The explosives: the shortage of vital component parts needed in the Navy...