National Affairs: Texas Watchdog

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...

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