In the week that President Truman announced his program for mobilizing the U.S. economy, the Senate's new watchdog committee on U.S. preparedness uttered its first warning growl. After just a month's sniffing through the U.S. mobilization effort, Texas' sharp-nosed Chairman Lyndon Johnson had caught the strong scent of "business as usual" in some corners of the Defense Department's planning.
Government-owned reserve defense plants, Johnson reported, had been allowed to deteriorate. Such onetime "surplus" items as a synthetic rubber plant, airplane engines and radio equipment had been put up for sale while the U.S. was frantically remobilizing for Korea. Rubber stockpiling had slacked...