Tuttle Birth Industry Synthetic 1981

The Birth of an Industry: The Synthetic Rubber "Mess" in World War II
Author(s): William M. Tuttle, Jr.

Source: Technology and Culture , Jan., 1981, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Jan., 1981), pp. 35-67
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for the History of
Technology
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3104292
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The Birth of an Industry: The Synthetic
Rubber "Mess" in World War II
WILLIAM M. TUTTLE, JR.
The Alfalfa Club, one of Washington, D.C.'s most exclu

fellowship organizations," had never seen anything like it.
250 members, mostly United States senators, Supreme Cour
army generals, influential lawyers, and wealthy Washington
accustomed to verbal bombast and incessant one-upmans
fistfight was another matter altogether. Yet on April 9, 19
club's annual meeting, two of its wealthiest and most distin
members, Eugene Meyer and Jesse Jones, came to b
pugilists fought over synthetic rubber, which was obviously
most contentious issues in the capital during America's firs
year as a belligerent in World War II.
Earlier that day Meyer's Washington Post had published an
criticizing Jones's administration of the nation's still-unborn
rubber industry. Jones was one of the busiest public of
Washington, serving as secretary of commerce and as ch
several of the wartime subsidiary agencies of the Reconstru
nance Corporation. For example, as the chief executive offi
Rubber Reserve Company and the Federal Loan Agency
board chairman of the Defense Plant Corporation, his act
cluded not only the pre-World War II stockpiling of natura
but also the financing of plant construction for the new sy
rubber industry. A multimillionaire, Jones possessed not on
ness and financial acumen, but also a ponderous ego; he
thin-skinned to abide criticism. And in the spring of 1942,
United States still struggling to mobilize its industrial pote
war, Jones was the recipient of blame and censure that wer
the endurance of even a humble person.1
DR. TUTTLE, professor of history at the University of Kansas, was visiti

of history at the University of South Carolina during the fall 1980 se
author would like to express his gratitude to his collegues, professors J
and David M. Katzman, for their careful reading of this article and their su
its improvement.
'See the authorized and hagiographic biography of Jones by Bascom N
? 1981 by the Society for the History of Technology. 0040-165X/81/220
35

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36 William M. Tuttle, Jr.
"The plain truth is," the Post proclaimed on the morning of April 9,
"that Mr. Jones fell down rather badly on the job of acquiring and
producing sufficient rubber to meet an emergency that we should
have foreseen..... The chief reason for his failure," the editorial con-
cluded, "is a boundless ambition for power that has led to his taking
on more jobs than he can successfully manage."2 Angered, Jones had
immediately shot off a letter to Meyer demanding a public retraction;
he was still rankled that evening when he entered a ballroom in the
Hotel Willard for the Alfalfa Club's annual dinner. Indeed, he had
been grumbling to friends about Meyer just before they encountered
each other at a doorway to the ballroom. Jones first berated Meyer
and then grasped him by his lapels and shook him vigorously. As
Meyer wrenched free, his spectacles fell to the floor, cracking the
lenses. Swinging from a crouched position, Meyer, sixty-six years old
and thirty pounds lighter than Jones, tried futilely to land an upper-
cut on the jaw of his sixty-eight-year-old foe before bystanders finally
pushed them apart.3
The next day at a presidential press conference, a reporter asked
Franklin D. Roosevelt: "[Have you heard] anything from Jesse Jones
or Eugene Meyer since their fight?" Roosevelt jokingly replied that he
had "no news," but that he hoped "they don't make me the.... ref-
eree." "Are you counting time?" the reporter continued. Roosevelt
laughingly retorted, "I can say this, but not for quotation: I hope
there won't be a second round."4 Jones and Meyer abstained from
future fisticuffs, but the imbroglio over synthetic rubber not only
persisted but grew to menacing proportions.
Jesse H. Jones: The Man and the Statesman (New York, 1956); and Jones's memoirs (writ-
ten with Edward Angly), Fifty Billion Dollars: My Thirteen Years with the RFC (1932-1945)
(New York, 1951). See also n. 9 below.
2Washington Post (April 9, 1942). See also Chicago Tribune (April 10, 1942); New York
Times (April 10, 1942); Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes: The Lowering
Clouds, 1939-1941 (New York, 1954), 3:631.
3New York Times (April 10, 1942); Chicago Tribune (April 10, 1942); Washington Post
(April 9, 1942); "Jesse Gets Ruffled," Time (April 20, 1942), p. 15; and the following
newspaper clippings, all in Jesse H. Jones Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of
Congress, Washington, D.C. (box 273): Baltimore Sun (April 10, 1942); Washington Star
(April 10, 1942); Kansas City Times (April 11, 1942); Pontiac (Michigan) Press (April 11,
1942). ForJones's overbearing ego and false optimism, see "Jesse Passes the Buck ... ,"
New Republic (April 20, 1942), p. 529; Donald M. Nelson, Arsenal of Democracy (New
York, 1946), p. 188; Bernard M. Baruch, The Public Years (New York, 1960), pp. 301,
302; Eliot Janeway, The Struggle for Survival (New Haven, Conn., 1951), pp. 341-43;
Margaret Coit, Mr. Baruch (Boston, 1957), pp. 516-17.
4"Presidential Press Conferences: 1933-1945," Confidential Press Conference, no.
818, April 10, 1942, 19:275-76, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York.

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The Synthetic Rubber "Mess" 37
This fistfight was not an isolated incident. As a Washington corre-
spondent wrote at the time, "the thing is deeper than that. The truth
is that Washington today is suffering from jangled nerves and frayed
tempers because of the 'terrific barrage of criticism' that was being
directed at the 'inefficiency, mismanagement, carelessness, politics,
waste and extravagance' in the administration's war effort."5 And the
dispute over synthetic rubber was not only symptomatic of the the bad
tempers; it was a root cause of some of the most intense conflicts in
wartime Washington. The fight to initiate and control the synthetic
rubber program, for example, had generated a struggle between the
executive and congressional branches over which would have the au-
thority to establish priorities and allocate vital materials for war pro-
duction. Contention over synthetic rubber production had also ar-
rayed two powerful economic interests against each other, since
butadiene, one of the two key ingredients of Buna S synthetic rubber,
can be fabricated from either petroleum or grain, and the conflict
between the oil and farm lobbies over Buna S ramified throughout
the halls of Congress and the executive offices of Washington. (Buna
S, which eventually accounted for 86 percent of the nation's synthetic
rubber program, was underwritten totally by the government and was
a product entirely of World War II. Therefore, references to syn-
thetic rubber and the "synthetic rubber 'mess"' relate to the con-
troversy over the Buna S process.) That 1942 was a congressional
election year further complicated the issue; politics as usual did not
cease with the outbreak of war. Egos and personalities clashed, inter-
agency disputes abounded, and well-informed scientific and tech-
nological opinion challenged predominantly economic and politi-
cal judgments. Finally, some of corporate America's participants in
international cartels had yet to decide, even after Pearl Harbor,
whether or not their economic loyalties transcended their national
loyalties. One of these corporations was Standard Oil of New Jersey, a
coholder with Germany's I. G. Farbenindustrie of synthetic rubber
patents.
Most important, 1942 was a war year. These were ominous months
for the United States, for the Japanese military machine had found
not only Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, but also "the most vul-
nerable spot" in the American economy-rubber. Prior to World War
II, the United States had been the world's largest importer of rubber,
all of it crude. But in the first few months of 1942, Japan, in
5George Rothwell Brown, "Political Parade," San Francisco Examiner (April 15, 1942),
in Jones Papers (box 273).

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her conquest of South Pacific territory, had captured 90 percent of
the crude rubber of the world and 97 percent of the American sup-
ply.6
Nor was this all. The United States had to supply not only its own
military forces, but also those of its allies. To fulfill these requirements
as well as to meet critical civilian needs, the country had to develop a
synthetic rubber industry. The Rubber Survey Committee, appointed
by Roosevelt in August 1942, estimated that without synthetic rubber,
"military and other essential [rubber] demands" would, by January 1,
1944, exceed the available supply by 211,000 tons. Moreover, this
figure made no allowance for maintaining tires on the 27 million
civilian automobiles then on the road. Ferdinand Eberstadt, chairman
of the Army and Navy Munitions Board, viewed the situation even
more pessimistically. Writing in May 1942 to the financier and in-
fluential Democrat Bernard Baruch, Eberstadt observed that "unless
synthetic rubber is available in quantity by the time the crude stockpile
is exhausted, namely, around July 1 next year, we would appear to
have no alternative but to call the whole thing [World War II] off."
True, the government would consider and adopt alternative mea-
sures: tire and gasoline rationing, the halting of nonessential civilian
uses, a national speed limit, reclaiming of scrap rubber and tire re-
capping, subsidies for South American plantations and perhaps the
mass migration of a half million rubber workers into the Amazon
Valley, and the planting of guayule, crytostegia, and other rubber-
bearing shrubs in the United States and elsewhere in the hemi-
sphere.7 These actions would help to supplement the rubber supply,
6R. Lutz to Samuel Lubell, Subject: Natural and Synthetic Rubber, May 5, 1944,
Bernard M. Baruch Papers, Princeton University Library, Princeton, N.J.; Reconstruc-
tion Finance Corporation, "The Government's Rubber Projects (Volume II): A History
of the U.S. Government's Natural and Synthetic Rubber Programs, 1941-1955" (un-
published manuscript, 1955), p. 361, in Records of the Reconstruction Finance Corpo-
ration (RG 234), box 1, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as "The
Government's Rubber Project"); Brendan J. O'Callaghan, "Rubber in World War II: A
History of the U.S. Government's Natural and Synthetic Rubber Programs in World
War II" (unpublished manuscript, 1948), p. 1, also in RG 234, box 1; Rubber Reserve
Company (RRC), Report on the Rubber Program, 1940-1945 (n.p., 1945), p. 5; New York
Times (March 4, 1942); Nelson (n. 3 above), pp. 38-39.
7Report of the Rubber Survey Committee, September 10, 1942 (n.p., 1942), 5:27-31; Com-
bined Raw Materials Board, "Memorandum on Rubber Supply and Requirements,"
May 20, 1942, copy in James B. Conant Papers, in Conant's possession in New York
City (Conant's NYC Papers have now been transferred to the Harvard University
Archives as a separate part of his presidential papers; hereafter referred to as JBC's
NYC Papers); Ferdinand Eberstadt to Bernard Baruch, May 9, 1942, and Baruch to
Eberstadt, May 12, 1942, in Baruch Papers; Virginia Turrell, "Rubber Policies of the
War Production Board and Its Predecessor Agencies, May 1940 to March 1944," War

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but they alone would not be enough to halt the alarming shortages
that loomed on the horizon.8
Jones had stockpiled 570,000 tons of crude rubber, or about one
year's supply, before Pearl Harbor, but his critics argued that he
should have accumulated more. As Eliot Janeway has noted, Jones
was a bargain hunter who "had been dollar-wise and rubber foolish
while there was still time to stockpile natural rubber ...." His direc-
tion of the synthetic program had also been cautious and faltering. In
1941, he had authorized the prewar construction of four synthetic
rubber plants, each to be operated by one of the "big four" tire manu-
facturers (B. F. Goodrich, Goodyear, Firestone, and U.S. Rubber) and
each to have an annual capacity of 2,500 tons. But this total of 10,000
tons, even when later boosted to 40,000 tons, fell short of the
100,000-ton program advocated by others in the government. Not
until after Pearl Harbor did Jones triple this scheduled capacity, and
he persisted in expressing optimism that "we will all have enough
rubber for all war purposes for several years" along with enough for
some civilian driving. Jones's actions, however, belied his sanguine
words. In mid-January he authorized the expansion of the program
to 400,000 tons, and in March he jumped it once again, this time to
600,000 tons. By April, the War Production Board had cut through
the red tape of priorities and allocated construction materials for
processing plants for butadiene and styrene, the basic ingredients for
Buna S, the product upon which the government counted for the
bulk of its synthetic supply. Also in April Jones began to contract with
oil and rubber companies for an 800,000-ton per year industry, of
which 705,000 tons were to be Buna S. Jones had finally acted, how-
ever falteringly, but he was still being stung by a rising swarm of
critics.9
Production Board, Brief Survey no. 11 (unpublished manuscript, 1944), pp. 1-5,
22-39, in Records of the War Production Board (RG 179), WPB 033.308, "Rubber
Policies: PARB Report Rubber"; "A Summary of the Activities of Rubber Reserve
Company," in Jones Papers (box 203); "The Government's Rubber Projects," pp. 348-
424.
8Before Pearl Harbor, the United States had demonstrated little interest in synthetic
rubber, producing less than 10,000 tons in 1941. On the other hand, Germany and
Russia had produced synthetic rubber in abundance for years. See New York Times
(March 26, 28, April 2-5, 14, June 1, 26, 1942); U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Com-
mittee Investigating the National Defense Program, Investigation of the National Defense
Program, 77th Cong., 1st sess., 1942, pt. 11:4307-58; "Rubber-How Do We Stand?"
Fortune 25 (June 1942): 94-96, 192-94; U. Close, "Digest of Our Rubber Problem,"
American Mercury 54 (March 1942): 300-305; F. De Armond, "If We Are to Keep
America on Wheels," Nation's Business 30 (May 1942): 39-54; M. Straight, "Standard
Oil: Axis Ally," New Republic (April 6, 1942), pp. 450-51.
9Undated, unsigned memorandum to Jesse Jones, September 4, 1942, in Jones Pa-

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Patents represented another roadblock to the creation of a synthetic

rubber industry. Standard Oil of New Jersey owned the patents on
Buna S and butyl, but it did not exercise exclusive control over them;
its not-so-silent partner was a German industrial giant, I. G. Far-
benindustrie. In 1929 Standard and Farben had executed a "division
of fields" agreement whereby, according to the Senate Special Com-
mittee Investigating the National Defense Program (the Truman
Committee), "I. G. Farben retained supremacy in the chemicals field
all over the world, including the United States, and turned over to Stan-
dard its patent rights in the oil field, for use anywhere in the world
except in Germany." By this one-sided agreement, Standard was to be,
as its president conceded, Farben's "junior partner" in the pe-
trochemical industry, which included synthetic rubber. Standard
found this arrangement to be agreeable, since it expected to furnish
Farben with much of the crude petroleum to be used for this purpose.
Other agreements to share patents, technical information, and prod-
uct samples followed over the next ten years. As Nazi domination over
Farben's policies mounted in the 1930s, however, the relationship
became even more one-sided. In 1938, for example, Standard trans-
mitted "full technical information" about its butyl rubber in exchange
for Farben's "promise to get permission from the German Govern-
ment to give Standard information about Buna." But, as a Standard
executive noted in a memorandum, it was not "forthcoming as a result
of the German Government's refusal, because of military expediency,
to permit I. G. to reveal such information to anyone outside Ger-
pers (box 203); Jones to Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 13 and April 26, 1942, both in
ibid. (box 30); Arthur B. Newhall to Jones, April 28, 1942, in ibid., and in Papers of the
Rubber Survey Committee (RSC), Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York
(hereafter referred to as RSC Papers); "Statement of Jesse Jones ... before the Senate
Agricultural Committee," May 21, 1942; "Synthetic Rubber Committee Meeting," May
25, 1942; and "Synthetic Rubber-Estimates of Rubber Production," May 29, 1942, all
in Jones Papers (box 203); Congressional Record, 88:4542-58, appendix 1540, 2327-29;
"U.S. Imports of Rubber by Country, 1939, 1940, 1941," ca. August 13, 1942, and Milo
Perkins to Bernard Baruch, August 16, 1942, both in RSC Papers; Harold L. Ickes to
Baruch, July 29, 1942, in Baruch Papers; Rubber Reserve Company (n. 6 above), pp.
14-15, 19-21, 58; O'Callaghan (n. 6 above), pp. 13-30, 124-27; Hebert Feis, Three
International Episodes: Seenfrom E. A. (New York, 1966), pp. 3-90, 309-13; Nelson, pp.
7-11, 38-39, 188-89, 290-302; Jones (n. 1 above), pp. 396-410; Timmons (n. 1 above),
pp. 301-9, 321;Janeway (n. 2 above), pp. 80-83, 340-43; Washington Times Herald (May
27, 1942); Washington Star (March 25, April 18, 1942); St. Louis Post Dispatch (March
29, 1942); Washington Post (March 28, August 25, 1942); New York Times (January 2, 8,
10-13, 15, February 15, March 22, 25, April 2, 8, 10, August 9, 1942); W. Haynes,
"Needed: 600,000 Tons of Rubber," New York Times Magazine (July 26, 1942), pp. 3-4,
19; U.S. Congress, Investigation of the National Defense Program (n. 8 above), pt.
11:4542-59, 4786-91.

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many." The "Hitler government," another Standard executive ob-
served, "does not look with favor upon turning the invention over to
foreign countries."10
Through these actions, one-sided though they were, Standard as-
pired to establish for itself a dominant position in the synthetic
rubber industry. First of all, it already had a monopoly on the pro-
duction and marketing of butyl rubber, and second, according to the
Department of Justice, it hoped that, by continuing to cooperate with
Farben, "it might be able at some future date to receive the know-how
on Buna rubber... ." In the meantime, Standard successfully de-
terred research by other companies into alternative synthetic rubbers.
And it did this from 1934 until late 1940 by a conscious policy of
deception, by "actively pursuing a course of carrying on negotiations
with the four leading rubber companies in the United States leading
them to believe that [it] could furnish them know-how as to the pro-
duction of synthetic Buna rubber and encouraging their reliance
upon Standard for this purpose, thereby discouraging their in-
dependent research work on synthetic rubber.""
With the outbreak of World War II in Europe, Farben and Stan-
dard executed additional agreements, one purpose of which was to
exempt these patents from confiscation by the Alien Property Custo-
dian in the event of American entry into the war. As part of these
agreements, Farben assigned its Buna patents in the United States to
Standard, an event that augured well for the development, finally, of
an American synthetic rubber industry. Standard also offered to
license its patents to the big four tire companies. But its asking price
was too high for two of the companies, Goodyear and Goodrich. In
addition to charging healthy royalties, Standard required each licen-
see to license back to Standard all of its own technological devel-
opments in the Buna field, thus, as the Department of Justice noted,
'?U.S. Department of Justice, "Standard-I. G. Investigation: Report of January 1,

1942," in Prewitt Files in Records of Federal Trade Commission (RG 122), box 15,
National Archives; and "Memorandum of Synthetic Rubber," July 18, 1942, in RSC
Papers; U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National
Defense Program, Investigation of the National Defense Program, 77th Cong., 2d sess.,
1942, S. Rept. 480, pt. 7:27-57; "Rubber-How Do We Stand?" p. 97; Frank A.
Howard, Buna Rubber: The Birth of an Industry (New York, 1947), pp. 249-51; George
Sweet Gibb and Evelyn H. Knowlton, History of Standard Oil Company (New Jersey): The
Resurgent Years, 1911-1927 (New York, 1956), 2:544-47; Henrietta M. Larson et al.,
History of Standard Oil Company (New Jersey): New Horizons, 1927-1950 (New York, 1971),
3:153-60, 163, 167-75, 405-8, 412-18, 427-43, 446-52, 507-12.
"U.S. Department of Justice, "Standard-I. G. Case: Memorandum on the Counts
and Defendants in the Criminal Proceedings," February 23, 1942, in Prewitt Files (RG
122), box 15.

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providing Standard with "more complete access than its licensees to
the latest Buna technology" and prohibiting "any producer but Stan-
dard from producing the entire range of synthetic rubber products."
Standard's purposes were still monopolistic. It was not until after
Pearl Harbor that Standard entered with other corporations into a
patent-pooling agreement negotiated by Jesse Jones's Rubber Reserve
Company. Finally, in late March 1942, Standard, six of its sub-
sidiaries, and three of its officers were fined $5,000 each by a federal
judge after pleading nolo contendere to charges of violating antitrust
laws. To avoid further prosecution, Standard released royalty free for
the duration of the war its patents in synthetic rubber, including those
for Buna S and butyl. Standard, in effect, stood accused of placing a
higher priority on its commitment to a cartel than on its loyalty obli-
gations to its native land. And it was significant that named in the suit
as a coconspirator was I. G. Farbenindustrie.12
The Department of Justice, the Truman Committee, and Standard
disagreed over how to interpret Standard's relationship with Farben.
Testifying before the Truman Committee, Thurman Arnold, assis-
tant attorney general in charge of the Antitrust Division, asserted that
Standard's actions constituted "treason." Standard, Arnold testified,
had entered into an "illegal conspiracy" that resulted in the "suppres-
sion of independent experimentation, production and distribution"
of synthetic rubber. In its defense, Standard argued unconvincingly
and contradictorily not only that it opposed cartels and that it had
never had any cartel agreement with Farben, but also that the "re-
lationship" between Standard and Farben had benefited rather than
retarded synthetic rubber production by resulting in the release of the
Buna patents as well as of information critical to the production of
aviation gasoline, toluol, and explosives. The Truman Committee was
more on target when it observed that, although the cartel arrange-
ments "seriously retarded" the American development of Buna,
12"Cartel Policy-Canadian Discussions," in Subcommittee on Cartel Policy, "In-

formal Economic Discussions ... Political Aspects of International Cartels," Cartels
Paper no. 4, January 3, 1943, in Prewitt Files (RG 122), box 5; see also "Memorandum
for the Files: The Hague Memorandum of September 25, 1939," August 18, 1941;
"Memorandum for the Files: Synthetic Rubber, Indications of Agreement between
DuPont and I. G. (Possibility of Standard Oil Participation by Virtue of Standard-I. G.
Relationship)," July 23, 1941; and list of "Memos re: Standard-I.G.," undated, all in
ibid., box 15; U.S. Congress, Investigation of the National Defense Program (n. 10 above),
pt. 7:27-57; Jones (n. 1 above), pp. 405-6; A. H. Feller to Archibald MacLeish, Subject:
The Synthetic Rubber Problem, July 7, 1942, in RSC Papers; Guenter Reimann, Patents
for Hitler (New York, 1942), pp. 158-201; U.S. Congress, Senate, Consent Decree in Suits
against the Standard Oil Co. (N.J.) et al., 77th Cong., 2d sess., 1942, S. Doc. 197; New York
Times (March 26-28, April 2-5, 14, June 1, 26, 1942).

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"there is no question of moral turpitude or of subjective unpatriotic
motive on the part of Standard, or of any of its officials." According to
the Truman Committee, these executives were simply doing business
according to the business ethics of the day, and their actions should be
seen "as part of a general picture of big business playing the game
according to the rules as Standard construed them, viewing patents
not only as an offensive weapon by which to better its own commercial
position, but also [as] a defensive weapon to resist the efforts of other
companies to better their relative position in industry."13
With the government's letting of contracts and Standard Oil's re-
lease of patents, a realistic program appeared to be under way at last.
Unfortunately, appearances in this case were deceiving. The program
was in administrative chaos; conflicts over authority and policy had
created bitter dissension among and within government agencies. For
example, Jones, having effective responsibility for synthetic rubber
production, had determined policies for financing and directing plant
construction and expansion. At the same time, no plants could be
constructed without steel and copper, critical supplies controlled by
the War Production Board (WPB). Beginning with the executive
order establishing the WPB in mid-January 1942, however, the WPB
henceforth would have "full responsibility for the rubber program";
but this was a responsibility that the timid leadership of the WPB
seemed unwilling to assume. Another example of confusion was
gasoline rationing. In this case, the Office of Price Administration
(OPA) was the rationing agency for such rubber commodities as tires
and tubes, but the Office of Defense Transportation (ODT) had the
overlapping responsibility of coordinating all travel facilities, includ-
ing privately owned automobiles. In addition, Harold L. Ickes, who
controlled the nation's oil resources as the petroleum coordinator,
held that rationing was not only unnecessary but unwise in view of the
large supplies of oil in the West and Southwest. Donald M. Nelson,
chairman of the WPB, and Leon Henderson of the OPA, on the other
hand, frequently urged in the spring and summer of 1942 that ra-
tioning be instituted, contending that its purpose was to conserve
rubber tires, not gasoline. Overlap and conflict-not coordination-
characterized the rubber program.'4
'3New York Times (March 26-28, April 1-2, 5, May 27-28, June 1,July 29, 1942; June
2, 1943); U.S. Congress, Investigation of the National Defense Program (n. 10 above), pt.
7:28; John Morton Blum, V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture during World
War II (New York, 1976), pp. 132-33, 135.
'4Jesse Jones to Franklin D. Roosevelt, September 13, 1942, in Jones Papers (box
204); Executive Order no. 9024, January 16, 1942, in Harry C. Coles to Samuel Lubell,
Subject: Administrative Authority and Procedures in Respect of Rubber Supply and

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None of these agencies, moreover, had a competent and in-
dependent technical staff of experts to advise it, even though the
synthetic rubber industry ultimately would represent a government
investment of $700 million. Academic scientists, particularly those
working for the Office of Scientific Research and Development, ex-
pressed their unhappiness with the unscientific bases on which the
government had made its decisions and suggested that the National
Academy of Sciences conduct an independent investigation. Both the
WPB and Jones had relied on one part-time adviser, E. R. Weidlein of
the Mellon Institute, aided by experts employed by the big four rub-
ber companies. The result was that government officials had adopted
procedures bordering on the absurd for making technical decisions.
Jones-in what is admittedly an extreme example-argued that the
national speed limit should be 30 rather than 40 miles per hour. The
reason for this suggestion? "Competent chauffeurs" had informed
him that "there would be some saving if you go to 30 instead of 40."15
Weak and competing leadership also impeded the program. Some
of the men involved were ineffectual, while others were prima donnas
Distribution, August 31, 1942; and Coles to Lubell, Subject: Draft-Diversification of

Administrative Authority and Responsibility, undated, both in RSC Papers; also in RSC
Papers: [I.] Lubin to [H.] Hopkins, Subject: Rubber Situation, May 29, 1942; Wilfred
Owen, Memorandum on Administration of the Synthetic Rubber Program, June 5,
1942; A. H. Feller to Archibald MacLeish, July 7, 1942; Leon Henderson to Donald M.
Nelson, July 30, 1942; and Joseph B. Eastman to Bernard Baruch, August 12, 1942;
"Excerpt from WPB Minutes," meeting 18, May 26, 1942, in JBC's NYC Papers; Fer-
dinand Eberstadt to Bernard Baruch, May 9, 1942; and Baruch to James M. Cox, June
8, 1942, both in Baruch Papers; U.S. Bureau of the Budget, The United States at War:
Development and Administration of the War Program by the Federal Government (Washington,
D.C., 1946), pp. 166,293-97; Civilian Production Administration, Industrial Mobilization
for War: History of the War Production Board and Predecessor Agencies, 1940-1945, vol. 1,
Program and Administration (Washington, D.C., 1947), pp. 377-79; "Government's Rub-
ber Projects," pp. 430-33; Bruce Catton, The War Lords of Washington (New York, 1948),
pp. 151-67; New York Times (January 10, February 15, July 31, 1942); Wall StreetJournal
(July 31, 1942).
'5"Verbatim Transcripts of Proceedings" of RSC, no. 6 (Jesse Jones), pp. 3-4, 6, 21,
29, 30-32; no. 8 (Donald M. Nelson), pp. 11-12, 15-16, 17-19; no. 23 (E. R. Weidlein),
pp. 10, 21-26, 34, 37, 39-42; and no. 24 (Weidlein) pp. 3-4, 5-8, 11, 61-63, all in RSC
Papers and in JBC's NYC Papers; Samuel Lubell to RSC, Subject: Rubber Programs,
August 14, 1942; and Wilfred Owen, Memorandum on Administration of the Synthetic
Rubber Program, June 5, 1942, both in RSC Papers; F. H. Hoge, Jr., to Thomas C.
Blaisdell, Subject: The Rubber Program, June 13, 1942, in JBC's NYC Papers; the
following in Records of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (RG 227),
National Archives, "Item #1 Rubber": Roger Adams to James B. Conant, January 21,
March 24, 1942; Vannevar Bush to Ray Ryman Wilbur, February 2, 1942; Bush to
Bernard Baruch, May 8, 1942; Conant to Adams, May 28, 1942; and Bush, Memoran-
dum of Telephone Conversations with Mr. Donald M. Nelson, July 17, 1942; New York
Herald-Tribune (August 3, 1942).

201.234.181.53 on Wed, 22 Jun 2022 01:20:31 UTC
who lavished time and energy promoting their own reputations and
carping about the performances of others. Jones, for example, was
overly optimistic, and while he defended his program, another ad-
ministrator, Henderson of the OPA, dismissed it by saying that "the
whole synthetic rubber program is only a gleam in Jesse Jones's eye,"
and Ickes complained that it revealed Jones's "customary compla-
cency."16 On the other hand, Donald Nelson of the WPB was a gentle
man, and he was diffident about using the power he possessed as
chairman of the WPB.17 Nelsons's rubber coordinator in the WPB,
Arthur Newhall, likewise was "not a forceful character," and he
seemed content to let other people make his decisions for him.18
Personal and political animosities also hindered the program. Espe-
cially heated was the conflict between the politically conservative Jones
and left-wing members of the New Deal, particularly Vice President
Henry A. Wallace and his partisans. Jones and his defenders-most
notably, Arthur Krock of the New York Times-argued that it was the
"leftists" in government who were the sources of a well-orchestrated
smear campaign against Jones. Unless the president, Congress, or
business people "rise up and smite the campaign against him," Krock
wrote, "Mr. Jones may not much longer be able to wield the sound
and constructive influence in this Administration which has on so
many occasions put down uneconomic and socialistic proposals."'9
What was clearly lacking was presidential leadership. Roosevelt
executive house of government was in disarray, and he either pr
ferred it that way, believing that confusion was a fertile ground fo
creativity, or he lacked the capacity to put it in order. He alone had
the power to disencumber the rubber program of administrativ
chaos, to minimize competing claims to authority among federa
agencies, and to reduce personal, political, and ideological rivalrie
but he did not employ this power. And in no other facet of the rubbe
"mess" did he demonstrate his indecisiveness so vividly as in the furo
over gasoline rationing.20
'6Harold L. Ickes to Bernard Baruch, July 29, 1942, Baruch Papers; Ickes (n.
above), 3:591, 598, 631, 644; New York Times (January 10, February 15, 1942); Janewa
pp. 341-43; Coit, pp. 516-17; Baruch, pp. 301-2; Nelson, p. 188.
7New York Daily Mirror (February 22, 1943); New York Herald-Tribune (August 4,
1942); Coit, pp. 506, 509; Janeway, pp. 295-97, 341-43.
'SSamuel Lubell to RSC, August 14, 1942; A. H. Feller to Archibald MacLeish,July 7
1942; Bernard Baruch to Donald M. Nelson, September 3, 1942; Nelson to Baruc
September 5, 1942, all in RSC Papers; Catton, pp. 153-54.
'9New York Times (March 22, April 19, 1942); Timmons (n. 1 above), pp. 301-11
317-24; Harry C. Coles, Jr., to Samuel Lubell, August 31, 1942, in RSC Papers; Jon
(n. 1 above), pp. 419, 420, 422-27; Janeway, pp. 83, 341-43; O'Callaghan, pp. 131-62
20Catton, pp. 151-72.

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On the surface, Roosevelt appeared to be less concerned about the
impending rubber shortage than almost anyone in his administration.
In mid-1941, for example, Roosevelt had subscribed to Jones's cau-
tious approach and had authorized the financing of plants for 40,000
tons per year. "These wealthy rubber companies," he reportedly had
said, "ought to build their own plants."21 As late as the spring of 1942,
Roosevelt seemed to take comfort in Jones's reassurance that "no
confusion in the rubber program exists with the public and none
elsewhere, unless it be in the minds of some having an ax to grind." At
a cabinet meeting in early May, Undersecretary of War Robert Pat-
terson had "brought up the shortage of rubber." There was a spirited
discussion, Patterson noted, but "no one seemed to have any other
idea except that Jones is trying his best to get synthetic rubber into
production." Ickes also complained that it was unfortunate that
Roosevelt "chose to be optimistic with Jesse rather than to be worried
with the rest of us." The president "could have resolved the doubt,"
Ickes wrote, "by asking some impartial person to ascertain the facts,
but, so far as I know, this was not done." Similarly, Roosevelt rejected
the advice of those who urged him to institute nationwide gasoline
rationing as a means to conserve rubber, and sided instead with the
optimists who argued that a scrap-rubber collection drive could
achieve the same purpose.22
During World War II the American people believed that, next to
meat and coffee, gasoline would be the rationed item hardest to cut
down on. "It was bad enough," the journalist Bruce Catton wrote, ". ..
to reflect that the war might be lost for lack of rubber; it was even
worse to consider how the average American might feel if, through
official bungling or the contrariness of fate, he was prevented from
making free use of his own auto."23 Americans were beginning to
believe that it was stupidity of officialdom, rather than the exigency of
war, that was threatening their free access to their automobiles.
Roosevelt obviously did not want to heighten this impression, espe-
cially in a congressional election year, and his advisers agreed. Charlie
Michelson of the Democratic National Committee, for example,
exhorted Roosevelt in late May to initiate a program of"voluntary self
21"The Government's Rubber Projects," pp. 357-418; Jones, pp. 402-5.
22Jesse Jones to Franklin D. Roosevelt, April 26, 1942, in Jones Papers (box 30);
Harold L. Ickes to Bernard Baruch, July 29, 1942, in Baruch Papers; Notes after
Cabinet Meeting, May 1, 1942, in Robert P. Patterson Papers (box 6), Manuscript
Division, Library of Congress; Robert P. Patterson, James V. Forrestal, and Ferdinand
Eberstadt to Chairman, War Production Board, June 4, 1942, in Patterson Papers (box
171).
23Catton, pp. 151, 162-63; George H. Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1935-
1971 (New York, 1972), 1:381.

201.234.181.53 on Wed, 22 Jun 2022 01:20:31 UTC
rationing," and he suggested that "any such general rationing as may
be in contemplation be postponed until after the election at least." To
do otherwise, he argued, would result in "an almost certain loss of
many Democratic seats." The underlying political problem was that
"the purpose to be served by the general rationing of gasoline is too
indistinctly connected with the need to conserve tires to be accepted as
an explanation of the hardship."24 Roosevelt no doubt could have
educated the American people as to the relationship between such
rationing and rubber conservation, but he did not do so. Instead, he
opted for the nationwide scrap-rubber collection drive.
Roosevelt and many members of Congress already had an unhappy
idea of what the public response to gasoline rationing might be. Ger-
man submarines, operating freely along the Atlantic shoreline, were
sinking ships, including petroleum tankers, in the spring of 1942; one
of the results was a desperate oil shortage on the East Coast. On May
15 the OPA instituted gasoline rationing in seventeen states on or
near the Eastern Seaboard. The purpose here was to conserve
gasoline, whereas the purpose of nationwide rationing would be to
save tires. Even though this distinction should not have been difficult
to grasp, politicians, business people, and journalists increasingly
voiced their unwillingness or inability to understand the difference.
And as the vehemence of their protest mounted, Roosevelt retreated
from the scheme for nationwide rationing, which he seemed in mid-
May on the verge of endorsing and for which the government forms
to put the program into effect had already been printed.
In his May and June press conferences, Roosevelt began to min-
imize the seriousness of the rubber shortage, much to the dismay
of Henderson, Nelson, Newhall, and others. On May 19, for example,
he seemed to approve the principle of rationing when he told report-
ers: "I don't know why we should restrict [gasoline] use, except in
connection with the general overuse of tires." But the next week he
said: "I don't attach very much overexcitement to this thing. I think
we are going to work it out right." And, on June 9, he urged Ameri-
cans to try to make their tires last "as long as you possibly can, no
matter whether you live next to an oil well or not." Voluntary self-
24Charlie Michelson to the President, undated memorandum enclosed in Edwin W.

Pauley to Jesse Jones, May 25, 1942, in Jones Papers (box 203). See also Harry C. Coles,
Jr., undated memorandum to Samuel Lubell; and Harold L. Ickes to Bernard Baruch,
August 22, 1942, both in RSC Papers; James F. Byrnes, Memorandum as to the Report
of the Rubber Committee, August 27, 1942, in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (OF
510). See also Blum (n. 13 above), p. 226, in which Blum has written: "On strictly
political grounds, Roosevelt deferred ordering nationwide gasoline rationing, one in-
dispensable program to conserve rubber."

201.234.181.53 on Wed, 22 Jun 2022 01:20:31 UTC
rationing, including both mileage and speed reduction, might obviate

the need for mandatory controls. "That is a hope," he added.
Roosevelt also was an enthusiastic promoter of the scrap-rubber col-
lection drive, which took place from June 15 to July 10. Critics of the
collection drive, however, had pointed out to the president that the
only way the government could meet its goal of 1 million tons was to
requisition every passenger tire off every automobile then on the
road; and the drive was, as the critics had predicted, a valiant effort
and a relative failure, grossing less than half of the planned goal. Even
then, Roosevelt continued to express optimism. "Personally," he told
Nelson, Newhall, Ickes, Jones, and other officials who were at the
White House to discuss nationwide rationing, "I'm not at all worried
about the rubber situation." And at his press conference on July 7,
Roosevelt once again voiced his uncertainty about nationwide ration-
ing. "If I lived next door to an oil well," he explained, "and had a car
with perfectly good tires on it, ... I don't know why I shouldn't use
the gas, if I had new tires on my car, that car being necessary to my
business." But he concluded by stating that he did not want to talk
further about gasoline rationing and rubber; it was simply too con-
fusing.25 Time for unraveling the confusion and finding a solution,
however, was running out.
"Without a better organization [for war production]," Bernard
Baruch wrote in a letter in early June, "the home front will get into a
lot of trouble. You can see that in this rubber, gasoline, tire con-
troversy." Thinking of Nelson, Jones, Ickes, and others, and mixing
his metaphors, he observed: "Too many cooks spoil the broth. And
now they have laid it on the President's doorstep where it should
never have been laid."26 But the president must not have been an-
swering his doorbell that night, for he did not pick up the prob-
lem-that is, not until the impending passage of Senate Bill 2600.
25"Presidential Press Conference: 1933-1945," Confidential Press Conferences, nos.

826, 828, 830-34, 836, May 19, 26, June 5, 9, 12, 16, July 7, 21, 1942, 19:335-36,
352-53, 365-67, 377-78, 383-88, 392; 20:6-8, 14, 16, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library;
Samuel I. Rosenman, comp., The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt (New
York, 1950), 11:270-74; Harold L. Ickes to Bernard Baruch, August 22, 1942, in RSC
Papers; John M. Hancock to Baruch et al., August 27, 1942, in JBC's NYC Papers; in
Jones Papers: Jesse Jones to Charles B. Henderson, June 4, 1942 (box 203); Jones to
Franklin D. Roosevelt, June 12, 1942 (box 30); and Jones, "Remarks ... at the Petro-
leum Rubber Drive Luncheon ... ." May 5, 1943 (box 226); John Morton Blum, ed.,
The Price of Vision: The Diary of Henry A. Wallace, 1942-1946 (Boston, 1973), pp. 92-93;
Bureau of the Budget (n. 14 above), pp. 166-67; Catton, pp. 155-64; New York Times
(July 22, August 6, 1942).
26Bernard Baruch to James M. Cox, June 8, 1942, in Baruch Papers.

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What finally forced Roosevelt to act was what was happening at the
other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Iowa's Guy M. Gillette, a powerful farm-bloc senator, introduced
this bill on July 18. Farm representatives quickly rallied behind the
legislation, which would establish an independent office to be known
as the Rubber Supply Agency. Empowered to provide factories,
equipment, machinery, and materials for the production of synthetic
rubber, the butadiene of which would be made largely from agricul-
tural commodities, this agency would be vested by Congress with ab-
solute authority to fix priorities and allocate materials for this pur-
pose. It thus could countermand all of the priorities and allocations
established by the WPB for materials essential for war production.
Opponents of this legislation arose to remind Congress that it had
already granted this authority to the president, who had delegated it
to the WPB. Such an act would be "dangerous," said Donald Nelson,
"because it would take out of the hands of the President the right to
control priorities, among other things." And Harold Ickes com-
plained that this was "a disturbing piece of legislation that is like
throwing a monkey wrench into highly-geared machinery; a piece of
legislation, too, that may serve as a bad precedent for setting up other
independent war agencies." The issue had been joined; this was a
direct threat to the White House, one that it could not afford to
ignore.27
Distrust of the rubber program produced endorsements for the
Gillette Bill, and nowhere was this distrust more evident than among
politicians in Washington. The rubber officials were either hopelessly
confused, the critics argued, or they were on the take: dollar-a-year
men who, as one senator asserted, were fearful of postwar competi-
tion from farm commodities, and who were "more interested in pre-
serving the opportunity for large aggregations of capital to exploit the
people than they are in winning the war." Still more important, pro-
ponents of industrial alcohol were correct when they pointed out that
while butadiene could be fabricated from either alcohol or petroleum,
it was the alcohol process that could produce butadiene not only
more quickly, but also without requiring the allocation of critical ma-
terials for new plant construction. The reason for this was that exist-
27Harold L. Ickes to Bernard Baruch, July 29, 1942, in ibid.; U.S. Congress, Senate,
Report to Accompany S. 2600, 77th Cong., 2d sess., 1942, S. Rept. 1516; New York Times
(June 26, July 7, 15, 22-23, 1942); Congressional Record, 88:6433-43, 6481-95, 6538-39;
Robert P. Patterson to the Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives, July 23, 1942; Julius
H. Amberg, Memorandum for the Under Secretary of War, July 23, 1942, both in
Patterson Papers (box 171).

201.234.181.53 on Wed, 22 Jun 2022 01:20:31 UTC
ing facilities, such as whiskey refineries, could be converted to pro-
duce butadiene. Moreover, the White House was not unaware of
alcohol's advantages. In late May, Isador Lubin, the president's statis-
tical adviser, had written Roosevelt's right-hand man Harry Hopkins
that the alcohol process "would require only about 20 per cent of the
critical materials for plant construction," and it "could be built in a
much shorter time than a petroleum butadiene plant."28
"There is no explanation by any responsible official," Senator Gil-
lette complained in late June, "of why this country, in setting up a
program for the production of synthetic rubber, gave consideration
only to... petroleum, . . . which will require twice the time and many
times the critical material needed to produce the same synthetic rub-
ber from alcohol." Actually, there were several explanations, but none
was satisfactory and all provoked serious questions about the honesty
and credibility of government officials. In defending its actions, Jesse
Jones's Rubber Reserve Company stated that "the best way to proceed
[in developing synthetic rubber] was to call upon the members of
private industry in the rubber, chemical, and petroleum industries
who had acquired experience in synthetic rubber and allied fields." It
was thus to such industrial giants as the big four rubber companies
and Standard Oil of New Jersey that the RRC turned for scientific and
technical expertise and with which it subsequently negotiated con-
tracts for industrial production. It did not consult independent in-
vestigators to determine whether production from alcohol might be
superior to that from petroleum. Jones stated, in addition, that the
RRC had made its allocations to petroleum before a farm commodity
process for producing butadiene "had been heard about." S. T.
Crossland, the RRC's executive vice president, reiterated this defense
in late May 1942, when he informed the Gillette Committee that he
28[I.] Lubin to [H.] Hopkins, May 29, 1942, in RSC Papers; Catton, pp. 164-67; Ickes,
3:591; New York Times (May 1, 9, 13, 18, 20, 22-23, 27, 30-31,June 26-27, August 19,
1942); U.S. Congress, House, Subcommittee of the Committee on Mines and Mining,
Production of Gasolinefrom Coal and Other Products, 77th Cong., 2d sess., 1942, pp. 60-78;
U.S. Congress, Senate, Subcommittee of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry
(Gillette Committee), Utilization of Farm Crops: Industrial Alcohol and Synthetic Rubber, 77th
Cong., 2d sess., 1942; "Alcohol and Oil Men Battle for Synthetic-Rubber Control,"
Newsweek (June 1, 1942), pp. 46-47; Bruce Bliven, "Rubber," New Republic (July 13,
1942), pp. 41-43; G. M. Gillette, "Synthetic Rubber: Our Present Agencies Have
Fumbled and Failed," Vital Speeches (September 1, 1942), pp. 677-81; "Rubber from
Food ...," Newsweek (May 4, 1942), p. 48; "Rubber Program Progressing: Farm Bloc
Fights for a Share," Newsweek (August 3, 1942), pp. 44-48; "Report on Rubber," Time
(July 20, 1942), pp. 18-19; "Rubber from the Farm," Nation (May 16, 1942), p. 561; I. F.
Stone, "The Truth about Rubber," ibid. (April 18, 1942), pp. 451-52, and "What to Do
about Rubber?" ibid. (May 30, June 6, 1942), pp. 619-20, 647-48; Congressional Record
88:4335-38, 4682-83, 5634-36, 6059-60, 6106-11, 6424-25; Nelson, p. 297.

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had learned "only yesterday" about the possible conversion of bever-
age and commercial alcohol plants. "It is remarkable," a disgusted
Senator Gillette observed, "how many things this committee learns
about that happened only yesterday."29
In addition, Jones argued that he was "entirely sympathetic" to the
alcohol process, and that he had always been willing to employ as
much alcohol as the WPB would allocate, but that the WPB had re-
peatedly notified him that the nation's total industrial alcohol capacity
was insufficient to leave any "allowance for butadiene manufacture."
And it was a fact that the WPB waited until May 1942 to divert a
substantial amount of industrial alcohol for butadiene production,
releasing 72 million gallons in early May and jumping the figure to
180 million late in the month. Before the month was out, the WPB
declared that it could divert 200 million gallons of alcohol, enough to
produce 220,000 tons of butadiene, or about 25 percent of the
butadiene required for the 705,000-ton synthetic rubber program
then being contracted for. But it was also a fact that Jones had not
tried vigorously to obtain alcohol allocations from the WPB, partly
because, as the RFC's historians have noted, "the high cost of operat-
ing this type plant would have precluded use of such plants after the
emergency for economic reasons." Indeed, the matter of price repre-
sented the only valid deterrent to a heavy reliance upon the alcohol
process. Butadiene from alcohol would cost 25 cents a pound versus
15 cents a pound from petroleum. Jones, with his banker's caution,
and other rubber officials had premised their actions, in part, on
predictions of the postwar uncompetitiveness and unprofitability of
the butadiene-from-alcohol process. The United States and its allies
had to have rubber, however, and many believed that the factor of
price lost its validity once the bombs began exploding on Pearl Har-
bor. But not until the late spring of 1942 did the alcohol process begin
to receive a larger share of the action. Up to that time, the urgency of
winning the war had yielded to postwar considerations of profit and
loss.30
It is equally evident that neither Jones nor Nelson of the WPB had
embraced the alcohol process until the spiraling pressures of politics,
29Memoranda on Joint Rubber Meetings, June 8, 18, 22, July 13, 1942, all in Samuel
Lubell to RSC, August 17, 1942; F. H. Hoge,Jr., to Thomas C. Blaisdell, June 13, 1942,
all in JBC's NYC Papers; U.S. Congress, Utilization of Farm Crops, 1:247-60, 424-52;
New York Times (May 1, 20, 22-23, July 7, 9, 14, 1942); "Verbatim Transcripts of
Proceedings" of RSC, nos. 23 and 24 (Weidlein).
30Stanley T. Crossland, Memorandum to Mr. Jones, March 10, 1942, in Jones Papers
(box 202); "The Government's Rubber Projects," pp. 472-82; Nelson, p. 296; New York
Times (May 23, July 14, 1942).

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economics, public opinion, and wartime exigencies had compelled
them to do so. Even then, they delayed, contending as Jones did
before the Senate Banking Committee that the United States "would
never get any considerable synthetic rubber if we jumped from one
process to another every time an oil company or an alcohol company
or inventor ... wanted the government to adopt their process." Nel-
son would only concede, without admitting a single error, that were
he to be involved in initiating the synthetic rubber program "all over
again," he would "make much greater use of farm commodities." Like
Jones, moreover, he explained that once the government had com-
mitted itself to petroleum, "We decided that we would rather go
ahead with what we have than to wait for the perfection of new pro-
cesses." In truth, scientists in Germany, Poland, and Russia had
already proved the success of the alcohol process, whereas the petro-
leum process remained little more than a highly promising possibil-
ity.31
At this time, there also was mounting in-house criticism of "the
fact," as one official put it, "that the Federal Government at present
has not a single reputable scientist aiding directly in the control of the
Synthetic program."32 Moreover, these various critics had similar so-
lutions to the rubber "mess": hire independent scientists who were not
beholden to vested interests, and appoint an independent rubber
"czar," a person who would "be reponsible for getting synthetic into
production and stopping the present bungling of this program so
important to the war effort-a man who can tell the Rubber Reserve
Company as well as the War Production Board people where to head
in."33
Pressure was building on Roosevelt to appoint an individual or a
committee to survey the rubber situation. Arthur Krock called for "an
independent investigation by an outsider of known capacity and per-
sonal disinterest ... a man who wants only to put the facts and the
prospect before the people." Some felt that Charles Evans Hughes
was such a person; others recommended Bernard Baruch. Baruch
himself suggested that Roosevelt appoint a politically wise Supreme
Court justice, either William 0. Douglas or James F. Byrnes. The New
York Herald-Tribune and some government officials plumped for Har-
31Rubber Reserve Company (n. 6 above), p. 19; "Rubber Policies of the WPB," pp.
27-29; "The Government's Rubber Projects," pp. 472-82; [I.] Lubin to [H.] Hopkins,
May 29, 1942; A. H. Feller to Archibald MacLeish, July 7, 1942; and Ferdinand
Eberstadt to Bernard Baruch, Subject: Rubber Situation, August 9, 1942, all in RSC
Papers; New York Times (May 22, June 27, July 15-16, 1942).
32[I.] Lubin to [H.] Hopkins, May 29, 1942, in RSC Papers.
33See esp. ibid.; Wilfred Owen, Memorandum on Administration of the Synthetic
Rubber Program, June 5, 1942; and A. H. Feller to Archibald MacLeish, July 7, 1942,
all in RSC Papers.

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vard's President James B. Conant, a chemist, because of his combina-
tion of administrative and scientific experience and personal detach-
ment.34
Anticipating a veto, the congressional farm bloc nevertheless swept
its bill through Congress in late July. The president disclosed at a
press conference on July 28 that he was "planning a move in addition
to the veto." Roosevelt had already asked Chief Justice Harlan Fiske
Stone to conduct an investigation of all aspects of the confused rubber
situation, but when the latter declined this assignment, the president
turned to Baruch as chairman, Conant, and Karl T. Compton, a
physicist and president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
ogy.35 Baruch eagerly accepted, ever pleased to picture himself as a
knight in shining armor. But even with his enormous self-confidence,
some would say egomania, Baruch accepted this responsibility with
some trepidation, for this job would require all of his consummate
political skills.36
The president's Rubber Survey Committee (RSC) held its first
meeting on August 3 and divided responsibilities. Baruch would
handle the politics, personally contacting executive agency chairmen
as well as the congressional leadership on Capitol Hill. Conant's re-
sponsibility encompassed the synthetic rubber program-its optimum
size, the possibility of diversification of processes, critical materials for
plant construction, analyses of the various kinds of synthetic rubber
and determination of their relative merits, patents and the dissemina-
tion of technical knowledge, and the possibility of conflict with other
essential programs such as high-octane gasoline or the food supply.
34A. Calvert Smith, "Notes on President's Rubber Service Committee," undated, in
James B. Conant's Presidential Papers (box 235), Harvard University Archives, Cam-
bridge, Mass.; Henry A. Wallace Oral History Project and Diaries, July 28, 1942,
9:1719, Columbia University Oral History Collection, New York; James B. Conant, My
Several Lives: Memoirs of a Social Inventor (New York, 1970), p. 307; Bernard Baruch to
James M. Cox, June 8, 1942; and Harold L. Ickes to Baruch, July 29, 1942, both in
Baruch Papers; S. Early to Franklin D. Roosevelt, June 6, 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt
Library (OF 510); Baruch (n. 3 above), pp. 302-4; New York Herald-Tribune (July 27,
1942); A. H. Feller to Archibald MacLeish, July 7, 1942, in RSC Papers; New York Times
(May 29, June 1, 10, 1942).
35"Presidential Press Conferences: 1933-1945," Confidential Press Conferences, nos.
838-39, July 28, August 4, 1942, 20:29-30, 41, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library; Harold
L. Ickes to Bernard Baruch, July 29, 1942, in Baruch Papers; New York Times (July
24-25, 29, August 2, 5, 1942); New York Herald-Tribune (July 24, 1942); Congressional
Record 88:6577-78.
36Copy of Franklin D. Roosevelt to Bernard Baruch, July 29, 1942, incorrectly dated
August 4, 1942, in Baruch Papers; Elliott Roosevelt, ed., F. D. R.: His Personal Letters
1928-1945 (New York, 1950), 2:1334. See also Smith (n. 34 above); Baruch, pp. 301-
Roosevelt to James B. Conant, August 6, 1942; Conant to Roosevelt, August 6, 194
and M. H. McIntyre to Conant, August 11, 1942, all in both JBC's NYC Papers and
the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (OF 510).

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Compton's area of responsibility encompassed military, scrap, and
reclaimed rubber. Samuel Lubell of the Office of War Information
served as the RSC's executive secretary, while Calvert Smith, one of
Conant's assistants at Harvard, became secretary to Conant's staff of
technical experts.37
The committee members knew of the difficult path ahead. Before
leaving his colleagues, Conant remarked that he had no illusions
about the difficulties of their task. "No, sir," replied Baruch, "this job
is a porcupine and a skunk all rolled into one."38
The next day Conant arranged for the RSC to conduct its hearings
at Dumbarton Oaks, the magnificent Washington estate owned by
Harvard. The president still had not vetoed the farm-bloc rubber bill,
however, or even officially requested Baruch, Conant, and Compton
to serve, and Conant complained that he felt like an expectant father
in the waiting room of a maternity ward.39 Shortly before noon on
August 6, the telephone jangled in Smith's office at Dumbarton Oaks.
It was Baruch. "Hello, Smith," he said. "Well, the baby has been
born." The president had sent his veto message to Capitol Hill, an-
nouncing that as there had been "so many conflicting statements of
fact concerning all the elements of the rubber situation," he had ap-
pointed the Rubber Survey Committee "to investigate the whole
situation-to get the facts...."40
Roosevelt's appointment of the RSC stilled criticism for a month. At
last, intelligence and objectivity seemed to have replaced politics, eco-
nomic self-interest, and personalities as the bases for public policy
formulation. "Unquestionably," the New York Times noted editorially,
"the very best formula for synthetic rubber is the one President
Roosevelt has hit upon. It comprises Baruch, Compton, Conant. The
finest ingredient for producing any mixture is brains."41
The RSC, functioning on the premise that its duty was to get a
synthetic rubber program in operation as quickly as possible, began to
37Smith (N. 34 above); interview with Samuel Lubell, Washington, D.C., November
19, 1975; in RSC Papers: "Committee Assignments," undated memorandum; and
memorandum by Samuel Lubell, August 8, 1942; Conant, pp. 305-28; Coit, pp.
513-19.
38Smith (n. 34 above).
39Ibid.
40Ibid.; Rosenman, comp. (n. 25 above), 11:312-18; Franklin D. Roosevelt to Be
nard Baruch, August 6, 1942, in Baruch Papers; New York Times (August 7, 19
Congressional Record 88:6752-53.
41New York Times (August 2, 19, 1942); New York Herald-Tribune (July 27, Augus
1942); Washington Post (August 8, 1942); Baltimore Sun (August 8, 1942); Boston Her
(August 8, 1942); Hadley Cantril, ed., Public Opinion, 1935-1946 (Princeton, N.J
1951), p. 865; Congressional Record, vol. 88, appendix 3218.

201.234.181.53 on Wed, 22 Jun 2022 01:20:31 UTC
compile data. Conant assembled his technical experts in a "Chemical
Engineering Group," which set out across the country to investigate
commercial alcohol plants, whiskey distilleries, petroleum refineries,
and Department of Agriculture experimental stations, among other
facilities.42
To Dumbarton Oaks throughout August came a steady stream of
government officials, scientists, and industrialists. Practically all of the
people who had had a hand in creating the rubber "mess" testified,
but what they had to say did little to clear up the situation. Indeed, if
their testimony had been made public, their critics would have felt
vindicated. Jones, for example, answered with blatant misinformation
when he was asked by Baruch if the RRC had ruled against the
butadiene-from-alcohol process because it had been "advised that
there was no alcohol from which to make it." Jones blurted out that he
had made his choice because he "didn't know you could make it out of
alcohol [until the Gillette Committee had brought it to his attention]. I
thought that all you could do with alcohol," he added in an attempt at
humor, "was to drink it." Although it is unclear whether Jones was
being ingenuous, or whether his available scientific advice was really
that biased or deficient, it is true that, after Jones's testimony, Baruch
"quietly asked" him to excise that portion "as it would make you look
ridiculous."43
The fundamental purpose of the RSC's investigation was, as
Baruch was fond of saying, that "of getting the 'mostest rubber fast-
est.' ""A bad process," he explained, "which will give us rubber now is
much better than a perfect process which will not give us rubber until
too late."44
After four weeks of hearings and several arduous days of report
42Bernard Baruch to Felix Frankfurter, September 21, 1942; Baruch to Senator

Arthur Capper, September 19, 1942, both in Baruch Papers; Smith; W. H. Lawrence,
"'Dr. Facts' Digs In," New York Times Magazine (August 16, 1942), p. 5; Conant, pp.
305-28; Conant to Joseph B. Eastman, August 10, 1942; staff reports of visits by
Chemical Engineering Group, scattered throughout RSC and JBC's NYC Papers.
43"Verbatim Transcript of Proceedings" of RSC, no. 6 (ones), pp. 12-14; Bernard
Baruch to Jesse Jones, September 4, 1946, in Jones Papers (box 3). See also Blum, ed.,
p. 245. According to Samuel Lubell (interview with the author, November 19, 1975),
Jones "liked to play the role of country boy" who drank his whiskey straight, unlike the
cocktailing New Dealers, and it was thus not always wise to take him literally.
44Bernard Baruch to W. D. Jamieson, September 24, 1942, in Baruch Papers. Also in
Baruch Papers, see Baruch to James B. Conant, September 18, 1942; Baruch to Senator
Arthur Capper, September 19, 1942; Baruch to Senator Harry F. Byrd, September 19,
1942; Baruch to Senator Sheridan Downey, September 22, 1942; Baruch to Ferdinand
Eberstadt, Sepember 19, 1942; Baruch to James V. Forrestal, September 19, 1942;
Baruch to Fulton Lewis, Jr., September 21, 1942; Baruch to Felix Frankfurter, Sep-
tember 21, 1942.

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writing, the RSC delivered its findings to the president on September
10. Conceiving its "first duty" to be the creation of a rubber supply
that would "keep our armed forces fighting and our essential civil-
ian wheels turning," the RSC recommended that this could "best be
done by 'bulling through' the present synthetic program and by
safeguarding jealously every ounce of rubber in the country." The
RSC also recommended expanding the Buna S goal by 140,000 tons
per year, or from a rated capacity of 705,000 tons to one of 845,000,
and increasing-at an unspecified "later" date, but presumably after
six months-the production of butadiene from alcohol by 27,000
tons. The Publicker Commercial Alcohol Company would produce
the 27,000 tons through the one-step "Polish potato" or Szukiewicz
process, which Conant's "Chemical Engineering Group" predicted
would be "simpler and less expensive in money and critical materials
than any known process for making butadiene from alcohol," in-
cluding the Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation's cumber-
some four-step ethyl alcohol process. Although the Carbide and Car-
bon process had received all of the government's contracts to produce
242,000 tons of butadiene-from a process that was admittedly in-
ferior to Publicker's-the RSC recommended no alterations in the
distribution of contracts, apparently in accord with the RSC's opera-
tion principle that there would be "no further substitutions in the
plans laid down," only additions to them. At the same time, the RSC
recommended increasing immediately the petroleum contribution by
100,000 tons per year by the use of Standard Oil of New Jersey's
"quick" butadiene process through refinery conversions. In other
words, the RSC's policy of recommending additions, but no sub-
stitutions, had actually resulted in a slight proportional decline in the
contribution of alcohol to the total program. Otherwise, the Buna S
program was practically the same as that for which Jones had con-
tracted and to which the WPB had allocated scarce materials. This, of
course, meant moving full speed ahead with an even larger buta-
diene-from-petroleum program at the expense, again, of the
potential alcohol contribution. Baruch's rationale in explaining this
renewed commitment to the petroleum process was much the same as
the one Jones and Nelson had earlier used. As he explained to a
complaining farmer: "Our Committee did not have before it a clean
sheet of paper upon which to write what we thought should be done
but we were faced with what had to be done in view of all the mistakes
of the past."45
45Report of the Rubber Survey Committee, pp. 5-6, 17-18, 39, 43, 54-55, 65-66; in
Baruch Papers: Bernard Baruch to Franklin D. Roosevelt, September 15, 1942; Baruch
to George A. Butler, September 19, 1942; Baruch to I. J. Seskis, September 19, 1942;

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Acceptance of that program did not mean, however, that
the RSC abstained from criticizing the architects of the program's con-
fusion. It denounced the "overlapping and confusing authority" that
had resulted in delay and unwise decisions, and it expressed be-
wilderment at the unscientific bases on which many decisions had
been made. What was needed at this juncture, the RSC recom-
mended, was a single "Rubber Administrator" with "full and complete
authority in regard to the manufacture of synthetic rubber, including
research, development, construction, and operation of plants."46
There was no disagreement among Baruch, Conant, and Compton
as to the technical details of the synthetic rubber program, with
Baruch merely asking, "All I want to know is, does it work?" There
was, however, a substantial difference of opinion about the program's
administration. Both Conant and Compton had argued in favor of
"excluding Nelson entirely," since he and the WPB had already
botched the job. What they advocated was the establishment of a
Rubber Administration "with autonomous power of priority ... and
completely independent of WPB." But Baruch successfully opposed
this proposal, maintaining that it would "divide authority, which vio-
lated the principle of unified control I had preached for so long." The
rubber "czar," as it turned out, had practically autonomous power,
but organizationally, he worked with the WPB.47
As Conant later recalled, one of the primary goals of the RSC was
"educating the public, convincing the public" that its sacrifices were
essential to the war effort. The public's strongest reaction to the RSC's
report was to its recommendations for "nationwide gasoline rationing
to hold the average annual mileage to 5,000 miles" and for a national
speed limit of 35 miles per hour. And the reaction was favorable and
supportive, indicating that politicians from Roosevelt down had seri-
Baruch to W. D. Jamieson, September 24, 1942; Baruch to Henry Lockhart, Jr., Octo-
ber 5, 1942; and Baruch to Lewis S. Rosenstiel, December 8, 1942; in RSC Papers:
Ferdinand Eberstadt to Baruch, August 9, 1942; Baruch to Donald M. Nelson, Sep-
tember 3, 1942; Arthur B. Newhall to Baruch, September 5, 1942; Nelson to Baruch,
September 5, 1942; and Lewis S. Rosenstiel to Baruch, November 28, 1942; in JBC's
NYC Papers: Warren L. McCabe to RSC, Subject: The Quick Butadiene Program,
undated; McCabe to RSC, Subject: The Publicker Process, September 2, 1942; and G.J.
Esselen to Conant, September 2, 1942; in Jones Papers (box 203), Rubber Reserve
Company to Jones, September 9, 1943; "Rubber Policies to the WPB," pp. 28-32;
Rubber Reserve Company (n. 6 above), pp. 6, 34-36; "The Government's Rubber
Projects," pp. 434-39; "Report on Baruch," Fortune 26 (November 1942): 98-99, 227.
46Report on the Rubber Survey Committee, pp. 7, 12-13, 24, 40, 50-53.
47Interview with James B. Conant, New York City, January 3, 1967; Conant, p. 326;
Samuel Lubell to Bernard Baruch, Subject: The Rubber Repor't, April 3, 1943, in
Baruch Papers; Baruch, p. 396; Bureau of the Budget (n. 14 above), pp. 295-97;
Harvard Alumni Bulletin (October 7, 1944), pp. 53-54, 57.

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ously underestimated the public's capacity and willingness to sacrifice.
The RSC also urged people to conserve their rubber through periodic
tire inspections and recapping.48
Roosevelt, in accepting the RSC's report, approved it as "excellent"
and promised that its recommendations would be implemented "as
rapidly as arrangements can be made." The press reaction, too, was
overwhelmingly favorable. "Hard as nails ... tough and honest," de-
clared one newspaper; "a great State paper," asserted a second; and a
third opined that the president should put the RSC to work solving
other problems.49 The RSC, Dorothy Thompson wrote, was "an
almost exact equivalent" of a Royal Commission, and she along with
others suggested that it "stay on tap" for future assignments, some of
the recommendations being that it next investigate the nation's food
supply, the financing of war production, and military and industrial
manpower.50 The New York Times stated that in "its way even more
important than the [rubber] policy now to be put into effect... is the
method of adopting that policy," that is, selecting for such studies
"first-rate men" of ability who have "the requisite specialized knowl-
edge"; and "because these men command the confidence of the
country, the course they advocate also commands its confidence."51
And in mid-September, two-thirds of the people sampled in a public
opinion poll stated their belief that the RSC, or a committee like it,
"should be appointed to investigate other national problems."52
Not everyone endorsed the RSC's report, however. Especially dis-
concerted were some farm-bloc senators, who branded it "disap-
pointing" at best, and some of the government's rubber officials, who
contended that the investigation itself was unnecessary and that the
RSC, having "a disposition to be critical," made unjustified criticisms.
48Report of the Rubber Survey Committee, pp. 6-7, 10-11, 36-38; interview with Conant,
January 3, 1967; Bureau of the Budget, p. 167; New York Times (August 9, 1942); Boston
Traveler (September 10, 1942); Boston Globe (September 10, 1942); Boston Daily Record
(September 11, 1942); St. Louis Globe-Democrat (September 11, 1942); Cantril (n. 41
above), pp. 864-68.
49See the following newspapers for September 11, 1942: St Louis Post-Dispatch, New
York Post, Washington Post, St. Louis Star Times, St. Louis Daily Globe, New York Herald-
Tribune; Wall Street Journal (September 12, 1942); Boston Herald (September 20,
November 8, 1942); see also numerous clippings in Baruch Papers.
50Boston Globe (September 14, 1942); J. H. Bingstahler to George Zook, September
18, 1942, Papers of the American Council on Education (ACE), at the ACE's offices,
Washington, D.C.; James B. Conant to Phillip Graham, March 6, 1950, Conant's Pres-
idential Papers (box 386); Wall Street Journal (September 12, 1942); New York Times
(October 31, 1942); Boston Herald (November 8, 1942).
51New York Times (September 12, 1942); see also Boston EveningAmerican (October 10,
1942); J. H. Reynolds to Bernard Baruch, October 24, 1942, in Baruch Papers.
52Cantril, p. 865; Gallup, 1:350.

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Particularly upset was the ever-defensive Jesse Jones, who blamed
"some meddler or meddlers-there were plenty of them"-for having
misled Roosevelt into ordering the investigation.53
The farm-bloc senators made no attempt to override Roosevelt's
veto of Senate Bill 2600, in part because they felt, according to their
public statement, that "we ought to wait to see what is done by this
new rubber administrator," and in part because the RSC apparently
had satisfied some of their objections when it "recommended that
facilities for the production of 100,000,000 gallons of alcohol be
erected on sites near the grain-producing areas." More than a sop to
the farm interests, such facilities could produce alcohol not only for
butadiene, but also for such valuable by-products as butyl alcohol,
"one of the war's most critically needed solvents," ethyl ether, ethyl
acetate, and ethylene. Even so, the WPB would not yet acknowledge
the value of alcohol to war production. Baruch complained that even
after the president had ordered the RSC report to be implemented in
its entirety, "the whittlers and nibblers" of the WPB were still trying to
minimize alcohol's potential contribution by impeding the construc-
tion of these proposed facilities. He was "amazed," Baruch wrote
Under Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, at Nelson "not accept-
ing the President's directive," and he predicted that Nelson would be
"in for more trouble with the Farm Bloc than he ever thought of, if he
fools around with that because I am going to be on their side this time.
There has already been too much monkeying around with the alcohol
process," Baruch concluded with growing impatience.54
In addition to the rubber officials and farm-bloc politicians, liberal
antimonopolists also criticized the RSC's report. "Baruch Report
Leaves Standard Oil Grip on Rubber Unbroken," declared the news-
paper PM in its banner front-page headline for September 11. One of
53New York Herald-Tribune (September 12, 1942); New York Times (September 13, 27,
1942); PM (September 13, 1942); Jones (n. 1 above), pp. 410-12, 413-14, 591-95;
Nelson, p. 305; Jesse Jones to the President, September 12, 13, 15, 1942, copies in Jones
Papers (boxes 30, 204), Baruch Papers, and Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (President's
Secretary's File, box 103 [Rubber, 1942]); Jones to W. Averell Harriman, September 30,
1942, in Jones Papers (box 203); Wallace Oral History Project, July 19, 1945, 22:4011;
Timmons (n. 1 above), pp. 309-11; Janeway, p. 343; interviews with James B. Conant,
December 31, 1965, Cambridge, Mass.; April 22, 1966, Washington, D.C.; June 12,
1967, New York.
54PM (September 13, 1942); "The Government's Rubber Projects," p. 483; Report of
the Rubber Survey Committee, pp. 14-15, 18, 50-53; and the following letters by Bernard
Baruch in Baruch Papers: to I.J. Seskis, September 19, 1942; Senator Arthur Capper,
September 19, 1942; Senator Harry F. Byrd, September 19, 1942; James V. Forrestal,
September 19, 1942; Ferdinand Eberstadt, September 19, 1942; Fulton Lewis, Jr.,
September 19, 1942; Felix Frankfurter, September 21, 1942; Senator Sheridan Dow-
ney, September 22, 1942; W. D. Jamieson, September 24, 1942.

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the most insightful and prescient of these critics was an investigative
reporter for PM, I. F. Stone. More than any other corporation, Stone
reminded his readers, Standard Oil of New Jersey dominated the
production of butadiene. As originally contracted for by Jones, Stan-
dard Oil or processes controlled by Standard would produce over 56
percent of the butadiene for the 705,000-ton Buna S program, 40
percent of it (or 283,000 tons) for butylene (a process developed and
controlled by Standard), 3 percent from Standard's refinery conver-
sion process, and 13 percent from a combination of these processes to
be constructed "in one locality." In recommending an additional
100,000 tons from refinery conversion for the 845,000-ton Buna S
program, the RSC increased Standard's direct and indirect butadiene
contribution to a total of almost 60 percent.55
The impulse behind Stone's critique of the RSC and its report was
more practical than ideological or antimonopolistic. Stone's objections
were twofold, both of them involving butylene. Part of the problem,
he noted correctly, was that the Standard process for making
butadiene from butylene, while highly promising, was only "in the
laboratory stage"; yet "the largest allocation in the butadiene pro-
gram, 283,000 tons, has gone to this untried process." Still more dis-
turbing, butylene was also "needed to make aviation gasoline." Stone
argued that, at the very least, it was "unwise to depend so largely on a
process which is both untried and may interfere with aviation gas."
What Stone did not know was that, in late May, Nelson had told a
group of rubber experts meeting at the WPB that rubber was the
country's " 'No. 1 Program,' with aviation gasoline running it a close
second." Despite this knowledge, Nelson, Jones, and others had
established synthetic rubber and aviation gasoline programs which
competed with each other for the critical butylene feed stock. And
they did this notwithstanding the presence of proven substitutes for
butylene-that is, alcohol and butane, from which several oil com-
panies had already successfully made butadiene. "The Nazis will have
won a major economic-military victory," Stone wrote, "if, through lack
of foresight, we suddenly find ourselves in a position where we
couldn't have more aviation gasoline without having less rubber, or
vice versa."56
55PM (September 11, 13, 20, 1942); I. F. Stone, "The Baruch Report," Nation (Sep-
tember 19, 1942), pp. 227-28.
56Ibid.; and in JBC's NYC Papers: "Highly Confidential" Excerpt from Minutes,
Meeting WPB, July 21, 1942; Frank A. Howard-to Conant, August 12, 1942, with
attached memorandum, "The Tire Manufacturing Industry Presents a Plan on Civilian
Tires," July 21, 1942; D. Pyzel to Conant, August 21, 1942; and E. P. Stevenson to
Conant, Subject: Breakfast Meeting with Dr. R. E. Wilson, September 2, 1942; "The
Government's Rubber Projects," p. 477; New York Times (September 13, 1942).

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In mid-September, Roosevelt designated as the Rubber Director
William M. Jeffers, the aggressive and combative president of the
Union Pacific Railroad. Although prior to this time there had been
"functional czars"-such as the chairman of the WPB and OPA-the
rubber director was the first of the "commodity czars" appointed
during the war itself; soon there would be others such as those in
food, housing, and solid fuels. Organizationally, there was bound to
be tension between the Office of the Rubber Director (ORD) and the
WPB, for the ORD, while within the WPB, "insisted on a degree o
autonomy that was equivalent to independent czardom." And whil
Nelson, as the WPB's historian has observed, was in theory "superior
to these commodity czars ..., it was difficult to maintain this re
lationship in view of the direct responsibility of commodity czars to
the President." Compounding "the picture of splintered authority
was Jeffers himself, an uncommonly contentious but effective person
whom some people accused of being "surly." Even Jeffers's critics
however, conceded that he had the tenacity and intelligence to do the
job, to "bull the present program through"; and the job, as he saw it,
was to brook no interference in implementing the recommendations
in the RSC's report, which he termed his "textbook" and his "chart
and Bible."57
There emerged in early 1943 what I. F. Stone had predicted the
previous fall: a furious conflict between the synthetic rubber and
high-octane aviation gasoline programs as to which would have
higher priorities for raw materials and component parts. While Jef-
fers urged Roosevelt to give "the synthetic rubber program ... a
green light," the War and Navy Departments countered that assign-
ment of top priorities to rubber would result in "delaying the produc-
tion of aviation gasoline to the serious detriment of the war effort."
Tempers flared, public accusations proliferated, and, once again, the
Truman and Gillette Committees began to investigate the rubber pro-
gram. There were also numerous requests to recall the RSC to settle
5?7ndustrial Mobilization for War, pp. 255-57, 379, 406-7, 557-58, 564-66, 743-44;
Bureau of the Budget, pp. 295-97; "The Government's Rubber Projects," pp. 448-51;
New York Times (September 19, October 7, 1942; January 27, 30-31, April 24, 1943);
Roland Young, Congressional Politics in the Second World War (New York, 1956), pp.
37-39; in Baruch Papers: Bernard Baruch to Fulton Lewis, Jr., September 21, 1942;
Samuel Lubell to Baruch, April 3, 1943; Ferdinand Eberstadt to Baruch, September 12,
19, 1942; and William Jeffers to Franklin D. Roosevelt, December 1, 1942; Executive
Order no. 9246, September 17, 1942, in Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (OF 4735-D);
U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program,
Investigation of the National Defense Program; Additional Report ... concerning Conflicting
War Programs, 78th Cong., 1st sess., 1943, S. Rept. 10, pt. 9:2-5; W. H. Lawrence, "How
BillJeffers Does aJob," New York Times Magazine (October 11, 1942), pp. 8, 25; Blum, p.
35.

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the dispute; it was like the summer of 1942 all over again. There was,
however, a solution that not only augmented the aviation gasoline
capacity, but did so without jeopardizing synthetic rubber production:
that solution was to increase the butadiene-from-alcohol production
and, as the Rubber Reserve Company reported, "to divert some of the
butylene feedstocks which had been contracted for to the manufac-
turers of aviation gasoline."58
The critical year for the construction of rubber facilities was 1943.
By March of that year, however, there were discouraging signs that
the synthetic rubber program would produce 241,000 tons in 1943,
instead of the scheduled 354,000 tons. In addition, Jeffers reduced
the annual rated capacity of the Buna S program from 845,000 tons
back to 705,000 and decided to build only 78 percent of the facilities
recommended by the RSC. Still, all of the reduced program was
under way by March. By May, plants with a rated annual capacity of
250,000 tons, or 30 percent of the reduced program, were "in opera-
tion or ready for operation," and by late October, plants in operation
were producing at a capacity of 646,000 tons, or 76 percent of the
reduced program. The RSC had stated that, "to avoid disaster," the
synthetic rubber program would have to produce 211,000 tons by
January 1, 1944. Production for 1943 exceeded that goal by 23,244
tons, but, more important, the rate of progress continued to acceler-
ate. In March 1944, the ORD reported that plant construction had
been accomplished for "all of the more than 50 plants in the original
rubber program." Production of synthetic rubber in 1944 exceeded
773,000 tons, and at war's end the rubber facilities were operating at
an annual capacity of well over 1 million tons.59
58William Jeffers to Franklin D. Roosevelt, December 1, 1942, September 1, 1943;
"Summary of the Situation ... as Outlined to Me by Bradley Dewey ... on October 8th
[1942]"; Bernard Baruch to Mr. Jeffers and Col. Dewey, October 9, 1942, all in Baruch
Papers; Bradley Dewey to Donald Nelson, March 24, 1943, plus attached draft of
statement by Baruch, in JBC's NYC Papers; "The Government Rubber Projects," pp.
448-51; Industrial Mobilization for War, pp. 550-52, 565-66; "Rubber Policies of WPB,"
pp. 33-34; Rubber Reserve Company, p. 46; New York Times (January 17, 27, April
23-24, 1943); Nelson, pp. 305-6, 361-62; Catton, pp. 175-79; Robert P. Patterson,
Memorandum for General Somervell, September 14, 1942, Patterson Papers (box 171);
Blum, ed., p. 188.
59S. T. Crossland, Memoranda to Mr. Jones, February 4, March 3, September 9,
1943; Norman W. Baxter to Jesse Jones, March 3, 1943, all in Jones Papers (box 203);
in Baruch Papers: William Jeffers to Franklin D. Roosevelt, September 1, 1943, plus
attached memorandum; Bernard Baruch to James F. Byrnes, December 3, 1943; ORD,
"Fact Sheet for Press Conference," February 9, 1944; and R. Lutz to Samuel Lubell,
May 5, 1944; in JBC's NYC Papers: ORD Progress Reports plus "Special Report of the
Director Recommending Termination of Special Powers" (July 25, 1944); and "Con-
fidential Special O.R.D. Survey" (August 1943); "Rubber Policies of WPB," pp. 34-36;

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"If the operations of any group of plants in the synthetic rubber
program can be called the most effective," one of the RFC's historians
observed, "the honor probably belongs to the plants which produced
butadiene from alcohol." Alcohol was the feed stock for 77 percent of
the butadiene produced in "the critical year 1943," while petroleum
accounted for only 17 percent; and by the end of 1944, the buta-
diene-from-alcohol plants were operating at over 180 percent of
capacity, while the butadiene-from-petroleum plants were producing
at 90 percent. Moreover, the ORD in 1943 canceled over half of the
projected tonnage of"quick" butadiene from refinery conversions be-
cause of "disappointing results ... in the engineering, construction,
and operation" of these plants. Alcohol supplanted petroleum as the
primary feed stock of butadiene, thus vindicating many farm-bloc
senators, scientists, industrialists, and liberal antimonopolists.60
The government, assisted by industry, scientists and engineers, and
thousands of workers, had achieved what the New York Times called
"the greatest engineering job ever to be undertaken by any nation in
time of war."61 The achievement also had a significant by-product,
that of enhancing the status of America's scientists and engineers,
who, just three years before, had scarcely been consulted about how to
produce synthetic rubber. Conant, Compton, and the other scientists
and engineers now had a glorified and somewhat undeserved image,
that of detached and disinterested men and women who, with their
objective methodology, could solve almost any problem. Bernard
Baruch, politician and pragmatic man of affairs, was one person who
had become enamored of science. Reflecting on the role that Conant,
Compton, and the others had played in formulating the RSC's rec-
ommendations, Baruch expressed his hope that "in the future, even
in the fields of economic, political and social matters, national and
international, more of these trained scientific minds, these experi-
enced researchers after facts, truths and realities, will be asked to help
solve them."62
"The Government's Rubber Projects," pp. 436-37; Industrial Mobilization for War, pp.
379, 406-7, 646-48, 697-98, 743-44; New York Times (December 18, 1942; March 21,
June 6, December 5, 1943; May 2, July 26, 1944; March 12, May 12, July 3, November
27, 1945; January 17, 1946); Jones, p. 414.
60"The Government's Rubber Projects," pp. 472-73, 483; Rubber Reserve Company,
pp. 7-8, 11, 21-22, 23-25, 37-40, 44, 45-46, 50-51, 59; Rubber Reserve Company to
Jesse Jones, September 9, 1943, in Jones Papers (box 203); and in Baruch Papers:
Bernard Baruch, Memorandum to Mr. Byrnes: Subject: Rubber Production, December
3, 1943; ORD, "Fact Sheet for Press Conference," February 9, 1944.
61New York Times (January 3, 1943).
62Ibid. (September 14, 1944).

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The mass production of synthetic rubber thus greatly reinforced
public recognition of the value of science and technology in waging
total war. Perhaps the wrong scientists and engineers received this
recognition-that is, Conant and Compton rather than the men and
women who actually developed and implemented the processes. But
this was recognition nevertheless, and it came almost three years be-
fore an even "greater engineering job"-the atomic bomb-stunned
numerous Americans into believing that the scientist and engineer,
whether saints or devils, might well hold the key to their future and
even to their continued existence on earth.
In late 1942, the WPB had issued a report predicting that "if the
vast and ambitious synthetic rubber program is completely success-
ful," and if people conserved their tires, the United States would
defeat "the rubber shortage" within the next year. But if not, the
report added, "the rubber shortage, in terms of civilian transportation
breakdown and rubber-starved military machine, may have defeated
the United States."63 The United States by late 1943 had met the
challenge and conquered it, but only after agonizingly long months of
delay due to personality conflicts; the operating principles of politics
and business as usual; irresolute, confused, and ill-informed executive
leadership; inadequate scientific and technical advice; political strife
between the White House and Congress; and all-out struggle between
the oil and farm lobbies for domination over segments of the nation's
postwar industrial future. Contributing to the delay was President
Roosevelt, whose administrative vagaries, avoidance of issues, and
lack of direction contributed to the already heightened state of confu-
sion. In the end, it took a commission to rescue him and the program.
Two other conflicts were evident in the establishment of this new
industry. The first of these conflicts, which was intimately related to
the second, was over which set of principles should determine the
policies of a nation at war: the wartime exigencies of winning or
losing, or postwar considerations of profit and loss. Early input into
decision making was sometimes more crucial than the validity of the
input itself; timing outweighed truthfulness and accuracy, since it
enabled some people to develop a program to which others could only
respond. Second, there were conflicts of interest. For example, when
the RRC and WPB selected technical advisers, they drew them from
the petroleum, chemical, or tire industries, and even the WPB's rub-
ber coordinator, Arthur Newhall, was an executive of a rubber com-
pany that was then producing butadiene from petroleum.
63Ibid. (December 18, 1942).

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To whom should the government have turned for expertise in in-
dustrial production, if not to experienced industrialists? Perhaps to
scientists, or to private citizens whose reputations for public service
and personal and economic disinterest were beyond question. As in
politics, however, business as usual was the modus operandi of the
day. What is unclear is whether Jones, Nelson, and others in the RRC
and WPB acted out of ignorance or avarice in their initial neglect of
alcohol. There is no evidence of official misconduct or criminal be-
havior. There is, on the other hand, a plethora of material attesting t
the twin beliefs of America's war-production leaders that postwa
economic considerations were often as compelling as wartime exigen
cies, and that what was good for large-scale private enterprise was als
good for the country.
In retrospect, 1942 was the year in which the United States had to
make its most crucial decisions in mobilizing the home front. Many
decisions had been unwisely deferred before Pearl Harbor, and they
had to be made and implemented in 1942 in order to be effective by
1944 or 1945. Synthetic rubber obviously was a case in point. An
what emerged, belatedly, from this comedy-and near tragedy-o
errors was a brand new industry. Within two years, the United States
had performed "an almost superhuman task," that of establishing a
massive industry that ordinarily would have required twenty years
to develop. "Looking back just two years ago to those hot August days,
Conant wrote Baruch in 1944, "it almost seems too good to be true."64
In 1939, the United States did not produce any synthetic general pur-
pose rubber, and, as late as 1941, production was only 9,450 tons, or
1.2 percent of the total domestic consumption. Prior to its entry into
World War II, the United States had been the world's largest importer
of rubber, all of it crude, totaling 818,400 tons in 1940 and 1,025,000 i
1941, the nation's last two years of peace. At the war's end, however
the United States was the world's largest exporter of rubber, all of i
synthetic. The new industry, moreover, had also reversed the pattern
of domestic consumption. Rubber consumption in 1942 had been 96
percent natural and 4 percent synthetic; in 1945, the totals were 15 an
85 percent, respectively.65
There is no doubt, as Thomas Parke Hughes has demonstrated, that
64James B. Conant to Bernard Baruch, August 11, 1944, in JBC's NYC Papers
Rubber Reserve Company, Memorandum to Mr. Jones, September 9, 1943, in Jone
Papers (box 203); Rubber Reserve Company, p. 30; "The Government's Rubber Pro
ects," p. 420.
65R. Lutz to Samuel Lubell, May 5, 1944, in Baruch Papers; Rubber Reserve Com-
pany, p. 59; "Rubber Policies of WPB," p. 6.

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"technological momentum" has, on occasion, been as compelling or
even more compelling than politics, personalities, or economic self-
interest in stimulating technological developments. Clearly, however,
the birth of America's synthetic rubber industry is an exception of
Hughes's thesis.66 In World War II, the U.S. government had sub-
sidized a totally new industry, financing the construction of buta-
diene, styrene, copolymer, and other plants at a cost of $700 mil-
lion. It had underwritten 100 percent of the Buna S facilities,
which comprised 86 percent of the entire synthetic rubber program,
by contracting with private corporations to operate these plants on a
"cost plus management fee basis." Moreover, when it became evident
that the petroleum process was inadequate to the task, the agricultural
process began to assume a larger share of the burden, indicating that
what technological momentum had accumulated by 1943 and 1944
had not become so deterministic that further change was impossible.
Eight years after the war, the government auctioned these plants
off to several of the same corporations that had managed them in
wartime.67 Much of this financing had been a gamble, a calculated but
necessary risk. As E. P. Stevenson, president of the consulting firm A.
66See Thomas Parke Hughes, "Technological Momentum in History: Hydrogenation

in Germany, 1898-1933," Past & Present 44 (August 1969): 106-32.
67Rubber Reserve Company, pp. 8, 47-51, 55-68; New York Times (January 17, 1946);
and esp. "The Government's Rubber Projects," pp. 539-651, 658-62, and appendixes.
There is a sizable body of literature on the government's disposal of the synthetic
rubber facilities; see the studies by Stanley E. Boyle, Charles F. Phillips, Jr., and R. A.
Solo. Boyle's works are: "The Artificial Rubber Industry in the United States" (Ph.D.
diss., University of Wisconsin, 1959); "Government Promotion of Monopoly: An
Examination of the Sale of the Synthetic Rubber Industry," Journal of Industrial Eco-
nomics 9 (April 1961): 151-69; and "Competition in the Synthetic Rubber Industry: A
Comment,"Journal of Industrial Economics 10 (March 1962): 158-60. Studies by Phillips
are: "Competition in the Synthetic Rubber Industry" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University,
1959); "Market Performance in the Synthetic Rubber Industry," Journal of Industrial
Economics 9 (April 1961): 132-50; "Workable Competition in the Synthetic Rubber
Industry," Southern Economic Journal 28 (October 1961): 154-62; and "Government
Promotion of Monopoly: A Comment,"Journal of Industrial Economics 10 (March 1962):
155-57. Articles by Solo are: "The Sale of the Synthetic Rubber Plants," Journal of
Industrial Economics 2 (November 1953): 32-43; "Research and Development in the
Synthetic Rubber Industry," Quarterly Journal of Economics 68 (February 1954): 61-82;
"New Threat of Synthetic to Natural Rubber," Southern EconomicJournal 22 (July 1955):
55-64; and "The Saga of Synthetic Rubber," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 36 (April
1980): 31-36. Other significant studies are: "The Emergency Rubber Project," in Public
Administration and Policy Development: A Case Book, ed. Harold Stein (New York, 1952),
pp. 633-48; Paul Wendt, "Control of Rubber in World War II," Southern Economic
Journal 13 (anuary 1947): 203-27; and W. Woodruff, "Growth of the Rubber Industry
of Great Britain and the United States,"Journal of Economic History 15 (December 1955):
376-91.

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D. Little and a member of the RSC's "Chemical Engineering Group,"
wrote Conant in the late summer of 1942: "Never in the history of this
country or any other was so much money invested in new manufac-
turing facilities on the basis of so little in the way of experimental and
pilot-plant background."68 And the gamble had paid off.
68E. P. Stevenson to James B. Conant, Subject: Magnitude of Synthetic Rubber Proj-

ect, September 2, 1942, in JBC's NYC Papers.

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Tuttle Birth Industry Synthetic 1981

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The Birth of an Industry: The Synthetic Rubber "Mess" in World War II

Author(s): William M. Tuttle, Jr.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3104292

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The Alfalfa Club, one of Washington, D.C.'s most exclu

DR. TUTTLE, professor of history at the University of Kansas, was visiti

? 1981 by the Society for the History of Technology. 0040-165X/81/220

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Patents represented another roadblock to the creation of a synthetic

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'?U.S. Department of Justice, "Standard-I. G. Investigation: Report of January 1,

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12"Cartel Policy-Canadian Discussions," in Subcommittee on Cartel Policy, "In-

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Distribution, August 31, 1942; and Coles to Lubell, Subject: Draft-Diversification of

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24Charlie Michelson to the President, undated memorandum enclosed in Edwin W.

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rationing, including both mileage and speed reduction, might obviate

25"Presidential Press Conference: 1933-1945," Confidential Press Conferences, nos.

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42Bernard Baruch to Felix Frankfurter, September 21, 1942; Baruch to Senator

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63Ibid. (December 18, 1942).

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66See Thomas Parke Hughes, "Technological Momentum in History: Hydrogenation

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68E. P. Stevenson to James B. Conant, Subject: Magnitude of Synthetic Rubber Proj-

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