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Yet Baruch's blueprint has never been put into effect in World War II. Few of Washington's present-day officials have even read his report on World War I. The Administration did not heed the signs posted by Baruch, nor even the plans of other students of total war and industrial mobilization (e.g., the War Department).
This generation learned all over again by trial and error; the evidence is that U.S. war production is miraculous (except for May's poor record) despite a composite of Administration mistakes that, one by one, rocked the boat dangerously.
The learning period is about over. The job henceforth should be one of adjusting the war machine to new stresses and strains, to new demands, new strategies. In helping to make these adjustments, Bernie Baruch will be fully employed for a long time to come. But he will not truckle: his note accepting the job—with its apparent contempt for Franklin Roosevelt's previous czardoms—was his own personal declaration of independence. And yet he has a human weakness; he loves the glamor of it all—his old place at the ear of Presidents, even when the ear is turned away. He long ago developed a strong taste for lunching at the White House regularly. But it somehow does not affect his independence.
Baruch can afford, as few men in all the world, to be independent. Financially, he earned the right to retire some 40 years ago. As a public servant he had enough laurels 25 years ago. All he can hope for now, from his Washington job, is the satisfaction of a task well done.