Nelson's Brain Boys

When Donald Nelson set up his War Production Board, he charted a planning board (his "thinking committee") to anticipate bottlenecks, keep production flowing, find better and faster ways to make arms. After a four-week search for the right men, he named:

Robert Roy Nathan, a whizbang young (33) economist from OPM's statistics division. Tall (6 ft. 1 1/2 in.), husky (some 200 lb.), black-haired Bob Nathan worked his way through University of Pennsylvania as a tutor, reporter, Real Silk stocking salesman, got into defense work via the Department of Commerce and National Resources Planning Board. No armchair thinker, he was an all-out expansionist even in the early days of defense; helped get the "Victory Program" adopted. Even Old Dealers think him one of the best young Government career men.

Thomas C. Blaisdell Jr., 46, assistant director of the National Resources Planning Board. Pale, slight Tom Blaisdell taught economics at Columbia University and Yenching University-biggest, best-equipped Christian university in China-has worked for the Government on AAA, NRA, TNEC, National Emergency Council, Social Security Board.

Frederick Searls Jr., 53, a top-drawer mining engineer whose work has taken him to most of the strange, out-of-the-way places which are today's battlefronts. Melancholy, laconic Engineer Searls, who deceptively resembles ineffectual Comedian Victor Moore, was recommended for a defense job by Elder Statesman Bernard M. Baruch. He began building ammunition plants for the British Purchasing Commission, switched to Army Ordnance. When he began, Searls knew nothing about ammunition except that it was supposed to explode. Now he knows so much that the Army refused to give him up to Nelson, insisted that he do both jobs.

To Washington, fed to the back teeth with boards and planners, this trio looked good, seemed more like spark plugs than a metaphysical brain trust.

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