View original document

The full text on this page is automatically extracted from the file linked above and may contain errors and inconsistencies.

Report to Congress
On Operations of the

Foreign Economic Administration




September 25, 1944

Report to Congress
On Operations of the

Foreign Economic Administration




September 25, 1944

UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1944




CONTENTS
Chapter

I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.

Page

Administrator's Letter of Transmittal
Wartime Foreign Economic Operations
Economic Warfare
Procurement and Development of Strategic CommoditiesLend-Lease
.
.
Export Controls
~
Liberated Areas

5
7
11
18
26
35
41

Appendix

I. Export Control Act
.
I I . Lend-Lease Act
III. Executive Order Providing for the Unifying of Foreign
Economic Affairs
„
IV. Executive Order Establishing Foreign Economic Administration
V. Executive Order Relating to Foreign Food Procurement
and Development
VI. Executive Order Relating to Surplus War Property
VII. Funds Made Available by Congress for Activities Now
Conducted by the Foreign Economic Administration. _




3

47
48
52
54
56
58
60




LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
T o THE CONGRESS OF THE U N I T E D STATES OF AMERICA:

Under the authority vested in me by the Executive Order of
September 25, 1943, and pursuant to the direction of the President,
1 am submitting herewith a report on the first year of operations of
the Foreign Economic Administration for the period from September
25, 1943, to September 25, 1944.
L E O T.

Foreign Economic
WASHINGTON, D . C , September 25,




1944.

CROWLEY,

Administrator.




CHAPTER

I

WARTIME FOREIGN ECONOMIC OPERATIONS

With the creation of the Foreign Economic Administration one year
ago—September 25, 1943—almost all of this Government's economic
warfare, foreign supply and procurement, and other" wartime foreign
economic operations were consolidated into a single agency.
The fundamental purpose of all these operations has been to
strengthen the military effort of the United States and the other United
Nations, to weaken our enemies, and thus to hasten final victory.
In fulfilling this responsibility, in conformity with the foreign policy
of the United States, the Foreign Economic Administration has
worked in close collaboration with the armed services, the State Department, other United States Government agencies, representatives
of allied governments, and American war industry and agriculture.
F. E. A. Responsibilities
Through economic warfare operations the Foreign Economic
Administration has analyzed information obtained direct from inside
the enemy's lines which has helped our Air Forces in planning and
carrying out the strategic bombing offensives that have smashed
German and Japanese aircraft factories, oil refineries, and other
plants, railroads, shipyards, and supply centers. At the sime time
measures have been taken to keep strategic materials from being
smuggled or traded into the hands of the enemy.
Through our foreign procurement and development operations vital
strategic materials have been secured from mines and forests and farms
all over the free world to enable the United States to manufacture
enough weapons and other war supplies to give our forces and the
forces of our allies the overwhelming superiority over the enemy t h a t
is now hastening final victory.




7

8

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

FUNCTIONS OF
FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION
EXPORT ACTIVITIES
Programming and shipping of lend-lease supplies.
Commercial export assistance and war-time control.
Furnishing needed civilian supplies for relief
and rehabilitation.
Export coordination

operations.

IMPORT ACTIVITIES
Government development, procurement and importation of strategic materials, commodities and
foodstuffs from abroad.
Imports under reverse l e n d - l e a s e .

ECONOMIC

WARFARE

Economic warfare intelligence and analysis, i n cluding work on bombing objectives and blockade
measures.
Preclusive purchase operations abroad to keep
the enemy from getting strategic materials, such
as tungsten and chrome.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
Coordination and supervision of the lend-lease
program and of all U.S. foreign economic operations.
Disposal of surplus property abroad.

FOREIGN ECONOMIC




ADMINISTRATION
CHART 1

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

9

Through lend-lease and export controls our allies have been supplied
with the quantities of weapons and other supplies they needed to
supplement their own resources for use in the fight against the common
enemy. Through reverse lend-lease our allies in turn have supplied
our fighting men abroad with everything they had available that we
needed. Friendly, non-belligerent countries have been supplied from
the United States with the minimum quantities of consumer and
industrial goods required to enable them in turn to supply other commodities essential for allied war production.
The work done by the Foreign Economic Administration in connection with the liberation of enemy-occupied areas affects not only
the immediate security of our forces during the final offensives now
under way; it also affects the security of our country after final victory
is won. The Foreign Economic Administration assists in determining
basic needs and m buying essential civilian supplies in the United
States which the armed services provide during the period of military
operations as an essential part of those operations. The Foreign
Economic Administration also procures many essential civilian supplies both for the paying governments of the liberated countries and
for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.
United States supplies for the latter are obtained from the contribution to U. N . R. R. A. made by Congress for that purpose. These
supplies are to be used after the military period, in order that liberated
countries unable to purchase such supplies may be given assistance
in helping themselves to restore their economies, so t h a t they can join
with us on a fully self-supporting basis as soon as possible in the task
of building a secure peace.
Through these supply programs United States production has been
used to strengthen the war effort of our allies and their production has
been used to strengthen our own war effort. Efforts have been made
to utilize every economic weapon to back up our fighting men in the
United Nations drive to win complete victory over the Germans and
the Japanese at the earliest possible moment. Each of these programs
has supplemented the other and all haye been interlocked as a combined operation on the economic front—just as the United States and
allied armed forces on land and sea and in the air have waged their
offensives as combined operations on the battle front.
Because the United Nations have fought this war as full partners
in a joint enterprise they are now close to final victory over Germany.
The strategy and battle plans for the final offensives against Japan
are being completed and approved. These offensives, too, will be
waged on a combined United Nations basis.
609567—44




2

10

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

Outlook After Victory in Europe
I n the period which will follow the defeat of Germany and precede
the defeat of Japan, the programs of the Foreign Economic Administration will be adjusted in line with these basic policies:
1. Victory over Japan comes first and everything that can be done
through economic warfare, foreign procurement, lend-lease, export
control, and liberated-areas programs to help win that victory at the
earliest possible moment and at the least cost in the lives of* our own
and allied fighting men will be continued.
2. Within the limits of this overriding consideration, Foreign
Economic Administration programs will be adjusted in such a way as
to contribute most to laying the basis for a high level of international
trade carried on to the fullest possible extent by private industry and
private business. This is, in turn, essential to the achievement after
the war in this country and in other countries of full employment,
which will be one of the basic foundation stones of a secure and
workable peace. *
These adjustments will mean relaxation of many export controls
and cut-backs in the foreign procurement of strategic materials.
Economic warfare will be focused on the war against Japan. Lendlease will be continued to the extent necessary to win final victory
over Japan at the earliest possible moment on a fully combined basis
with our allies. The Foreign Economic Administration responsibilities for liberated areas in connection with both the military and
United Nations Kelief and Rehabilitation Administration programs
will increase, as will its responsibilities for the disposal of surplus
property abroad. I t may be possible to sell many of these surpluses
to foreign countries so that the despoiled and devastated countries
abroad can get back on their feet more quickly and engage in expanded
trade with the United States on a self-supporting and mutually
profitable basis. Finally, the Foreign Economic Administration will
continue working with the State and War Departments on the studies,
based on F . E . A.'s information and experience in wartime economic
analysis, as to what steps should be taken from the economic standpoint to control effectively Germany's future capacity to make war.




CHAPTER

II

ECONOMIC WARFARE

The economic warfare operations of the Foreign Economic Administration have seriously undermined the enemy's economic ability to
wage war. These operations have been carried out in two stages.
First, information has been gathered and analyzed about the aircraft
plants, the oil refineries, and every other important phase of the
German and Japanese war economy, so that we. could precisely point
out the enemy's economic strengths and weaknesses. Then this information has been put to use in two major ways. I t has been used
by the armed services in determining allied strategic bombing objectives and in guiding sabotage operations. I t has also been used to
guide the blockade and preclusive buying operations by which shipments of those supplies most needed by the enemy from the outside
world have been cut down or eliminated.
In all of these operations the Foreign Economic Administration
works closely with War and Navy Departments, the Office of Strategic Services, the State Department, and the military intelligence
and economic warfare agencies of our other allies.
Economic Intelligence and Analysis
The strategic bombing offensives, which have been waged against
Germany with such tremendous effect and are now being carried
forward against the Japanese homeland as well as its conquered
territories, have depended for guidance upon a closely interwoven
process of economic intelligence and analysis in which an expert staff
in the Foreign Economic Administration has played an important
but anonymous role side by side with the intelligence services of the
armed forces and with the corresponding agencies of the British
Government and our other allies. Every available source of information has been tapped: the files of American offices of German and
Japanese firms; the records and experiences of American engineers




11

12

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

and other business and professional men who have worked in foreign
lands, and of refugees and foreign travelers; pieces of captured enemy
equipment; crews of captured blockade runners, and intelligence from
secret agents inside the enemy lines.
About 30,000 confidential documents on the enemy's economy and
war production have been coming into the Foreign Economic Administration every week to be sorted, pieced together, and analyzed. New
techniques have been developed during the past two years by which
remarkably exact conclusions on the enemy's economic strengths and
weaknesses can be drawn from bits and pieces of apparently unrelated
and often seemingly insignificant evidence. These new techniques
must necessarily remain secret.
The Foreign Economic Administration does not, of course, select
the targets for the strategic bombing forces. Those are purely military decisions. But, working with United States and British military
and naval intelligence, the Foreign Economic Administration has been
able to point out the most vulnerable spots from the point of view of
the enemy's economic ability to carry on the war. Here are a few
examples:
Strategic Bombing of Germany
1. Months before the dams at the Mohne and Sorpe Reservoirs, and
the Eder D a m were smashed by a daring R. A. F . raid on May 17,
1943, economic warfare analysts had calculated how much harm this
operation would do to German war production in the area and even
in what week of the year the wrecking of the dams would cause the
most destructive floods and the loss of electric power would be most
severely felt.
2. Because the Germans had miscalculated the length of the war
they permitted railroad equipment to deteriorate while expanding
arms production. They ran so short of locomotives that it became
necessary to assign top priorities to building more of them. Economic intelligence and analysis on this situation was laid before the
military. Immediately a concentrated air offensive was launched
against the railroads. Trains were bombed and locomotives shot up
and destroyed. This offensive, aimed straight at an enemy weakness,
forced the Germans to divert more and more materials and men from
tank and submarine production and they have never been able to
recover from these and subsequent blows at their transport equipment.
3. The strategic bombing offensives of the past year have been x
guided by economic intelligence and analysis. The Foreign Economic Administration learned, for example, which were the key factories .producing aircraft parts and engines for the hard-pressed Luftwaffe. This information was turned over to the air forces and these




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

13

factories were heavily bombed. The Foreign Economic Administration also learned that the Germans were short of ball bearings, especially of certain types essential for aircraft engines, and it knew where
were the key factories in German production. The raids on Schweinfurt and other ball-bearing-production centers, as well as preclusive
operations in Sweden to buy up Swedish ball bearings and thereby
keep them from the Germans was the result, in part, of these studies.
4. After Germany failed to reach and exploit the major oil fields of
the Caucasus in the fall of 1942 she was forced to fall back on synthetic oil production and the output of the Ploesti oil fields and refineries in Rumania for almost all her oil. Economic analysis showed
that systematic bombing of the synthetic plants and of the Ploesti refineries would soon have a serious effect on Germany's ability to fuel
and lubricate the Luftwaffe, her mechanized ground forces, and her war
industries. Ploesti and many of the key synthetic oil plants and crude
refineries were out of effective range until the capture of air bases in
Italy and the development of long-range fighters and of shuttlebombing between Italy, Russia, and Britain. Last winter and spring
and this summer, however, the concentrated bombing offensive on
Ploesti refineries, the synthetic plants, and other refineries cut German
production of fuels by much more than 50 percent. Now that Ploesti
has been captured, bombing of the synthetic plants under German
control is having an even greater effect. The Germans are rapidly
running out of the oil they need to carry on their desperate defensive
struggle against the advancing allied armies.
These are a few examples of the close relationship between our economic warfare and military operations which will soon bring us final
victory over the Germans.
Strategic Bombing of Japan
Systematic bombing of Japan has only recently begun, but as far
back as -April 1942 the Doolittle raid on Tokyo had definite strategic
objectives. In picking those objectives the Army used information
on Japanese production centers put together by economic warfare
analysts.
With the establishment of the U. S. Army's 20th Air Force tod of
the B-29 Superfortress bomber bases in the Asiatic theater, our
Air Force is now able to put to good use all the economic intelligence
information that has been painstakingly gathered, analyzed, and constantly rechecked over the past two and a half years. The targets
already hit on the Japanese home island of Kyushu, at Anshan in
Manchuria and in North China and Korea were picked on the basis
of that information. The economic intelligence work behind those
operations is already being speeded up and developed in anticipation
of the rapidly widening scope of our bombing offensive against Japan.




14

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

Economic Warfare Measures
The same economic intelligence and analysis used in planning allied
strategic bombing offensives has also been used in carrying out other
economic warfare measures against the enemy. These are essentially
blockade and related measures. They include such weapons as the
"blacklist," tight controls over exports to neutrals, counter-smuggling
measures, war-trade agreements with neutrals, and preclusive buying
of strategic supplies in neutral countries. All of these operations are
aimed at preventing the enemy, so far as possible, from obtaining
supplies he urgently needs from outside the areas under his military
control. These measures have been directed principally against
Germany since Japan has been unable to make effective use of blockade
evasion measures.
The "blacklist/' officially known as The Proclaimed List of Certain
Blocked Nationals, is a list of persons and firms, principally in neutral
countries, that have been found to be cooperating with the enemy.
The list was established and is maintained by the State Department
and no export licenses are issued by the Foreign Economic Administration to anybody on this list or on a similar British list, or to anyone
who is suspected of acting for persons on the lists. The "blacklist"
has been kept current by an endless series of checks in which economic
intelligence and analysis and export controls play an important part.
The maneuvers by which the Germans have sought to evade the
blockade are many and have usually been carefully masked. For
example, a neutral European country was found to be importing huge
quantities of manicuring preparations. A check showed that one
month's imports would have been sufficient for several years 7 normal
consumption in that country. Then it was found that the manicuring
preparations contained nitrocellulose and other materials that the
Germans could convert to war production. Through export controls
and blacklisting the supply was immediately cut off. In another case
an American exporting firm received a rush order for needles of a
type which previously had not been popular in South America.
Investigation uncovered the fact that a bombing raid on Germany
had destroyed a factory making this type of needle and that the
Germans were seeking to replace their losses by using a neutral agent
as a blind.
The Germans have been caught many times in the act of smuggling
goods through the blockade on neutral vessels, especially platinum
and industrial diamonds. These are the most difficult to detect,
because they can be so easily concealed. The Germans became
particularly active in smuggling after Allied control of the seas put
an end to surface vessels running the blockade between Germany and
J a p a n with valuable strategic commodities.




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

15

In many cases the Germans have resorted to the substitution of
contraband goods for shipments which had been duly cleared through
the Anglo-American navicert system, under which a neutral shipper
certifies that his cargo has been cleared through the blockade.
War Trade Agreements and Preclusive Buying
War Trade Agreements and preclusive buying—buying to prevent
vital supplies from getting into the hands of our enemies—have been
the principal weapons used to reduce and if possible eliminate the
sale to Germany of raw materials and manufactured goods produced
by European neutrals. In return for permission to obtain, through
the allied blockade essential supplies carefully limited to the needs of
their own people, the neutrals have been bound by these agreements
to prohibit reexport to Germany of any of these supplies, or commodities similar in nature, and to prohibit or reduce their exports to Germany of critical materials which they produce. War Trade Agreements have been used in our dealings with Sweden, Spain, Portugal and
Switzerland. They have been negotiated by the State Department
and the Foreign Economic Administration in cooperation with the
British.
The effectiveness of these agreements, combined with preclusive
purchases, has varied with the shifting relative strength of the Allies
and the Axis, but the net effect has been to draw always tighter and
tighter the noose of economic strangulation around the Nazi war
potential.
Battle For Tungsten and Chrome
. Preclusive buying operations have been conducted jointly with the
British in Spain, Portugal, and Turkey to supplement the War Trade
Agreements. For the United States these operations have been under
the direction of the Foreign Economic Administration, using the U. S.
Commercial Company as the buying agency.
The most important campaign on the war trade agreement-preclusive buying front has been the battle of the ferro-alloys. These have
been Germany's greatest weakness from the supply standpoint, for a
very large proportion of the alloys which are essential to the making of
armament steels came from outside Germany's borders. Some alloys
Germany obtained by conquest or from satellites, but for two of the
most important—tungsten and chrome—she was dependent on the
neutrals. Virtually all of her tungsten came from Spain and Portugal, and her highest quality chrome came from Turkey. Germany had
to have the tungsten for- armor-piercing ammunition and high-speed
cutting tools; the chrome for armor plate and aircraft engines.




16

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

I n Turkey the Germans were able to secure virtually no chrome
ore from 1940 until the beginning of 1943, while we and the British
secured 600,000 tons. Then the Turks signed the Clodius Agreement
with Germany which entitled the Nazis to buy 90,000 tons in 1943
and 90,000 tons in 1944. However, diie to preclusive • buying and
other allied activities in Turkey, the Germans were actually able to
obtain only 47,000 tons in 1943, and in the spring of 1944 Turkey
was persuaded to cut off all chrome shipments to Germany.
In Spain and Portugal the allied War Trade Agreements and preclusive buying combined to cut sharply the amount of tungsten Germany obtained. Finally this spring both countries stopped virtually
all further shipments after an embargo on petroleum shipments to
Spain had been enforced for several months.
Before that happened the competition for the Iberian tungsten ores
between Axis and Allied purchasing agents and secret operatives had
been carried on bitterly with no holds barred for over two years. We
were not always successful in individual cases, but the end result was
that the German shortage of tungsten had already begun to have
serious effects both on German war production and on the battlefields
before Spain and Portugal finally acted.
By the end of 1943 intelligence from occupied Europe reported
that inferior carbon-steel cutting-machine tools were replacing the far
more efficient tools tipped with tungsten carbide in factories turning
out equipment for the German war machine. More recently analyses
of captured enemy equipment have revealed that the Germans have
been forced to use high-velocity artillery shells without tungsten carbide cores. This means reducing the efficiency of such famous enemy
weapons as the 88-mm. gun which the Germans have been using
against our men in the campaigns in France and Italy. Thus preclusive buying, which is now over because allied military successes
have made it no longer necessary, is still paying off on the battlefields.
Frozen Nazis
Preclusive buying has been used to buy up many other war supplies.
Sometimes it has been directed at items which would not at first glance
appear particularly important, yet the results have had a direct effect
on the fighting. Wool rags are an example. We and the British
worked desperately hard at and virtually succeeded in cornering the
market in Spain, Turkey, and Portugal on woolen rags, other woolen
goods, and mohair. The reason for these purchases is to be found on
the Russian front. There the German Army went through three
terrible winters, in each of which they suffered tens of thousands of
casualties caused by the cold alone, besides severe military defeats.
One reason, and an important one, was that the Germans were unable




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

17

to obtain enough wool and woolen goods to make winter overcoats,
heavy socks and other warm clothing for their soldiers. That wool
wras in the hands of United States agents instead of on the backs of
German soldiers.
Nazi Ballbearing Shortage
War Trade Agreements, preclusive buying, and other methods of
economic warfare are interlocking and cumulative in their effect on
the enemy. For example, Germany's weakness in ball-bearing production has been attacked from all angles. The raids on Schweinfurt
and other ball-bearing factories inside of Germany were accompanied
by the conclusion of a new trade agreement with Sweden last fall in
accordance with which Sweden agreed to cut its ball-bearing shipments to Germany to less than 50 percent of what they had been
the year before. Then, late this spring the United States and Britain
succeeded in buying up most of the remaining Swedish output that
would otherwise have gone to Germany during the succeeding months
of the summer and fall. At the same time, measures were taken
resulting in sharp reductions in the shipments of ball bearings to
Germany from Switzerland.
After the War Against Germany
Now that we are in the concluding phases of the fighting in Europe,
the Foreign Economic Administration's economic warfare activities
are being directed more and more against Japan. At the same time
the Foreign Economic Administration is using its economic intelligence and analysis experience in the German phase of the war as
the basis for new studies on what should be done after the surrender
of Germany to destroy its power and capacity to make war in the
future. This information is being made available to the military
authorities, the State Department, and such other United States and
allied agencies as will participate in taking measures to see to it that
Germany does not again menace the peace of succeeding generations.

609567—44

3




CHAPTER

III

PROCUREMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF STRATEGIC
COMMODITIES

The phenomenal success of America's war industry in turning out
the great quantities of guns, munitions, planes, tanks, ships and other
vital war materials needed to overcome the Axis has been due to
many factors, one of the most important of which has been the ability
of our war industry to get strategic and critical raw materials.
Although the United States is richly endowed with natural resources,
many of the critical raw materials essential to the success of our war
program are produced in insufficient quantities, or not at all, in this
country. According to the War Production Board, 48 of the 136
raw materials listed as strategic and critical at the outset of the war
were virtually unprocurable within the United States.
Imports of Critical Materials
This country has had to import for its war industries, for example,
all of its tin ore; all of its corundum for grinding optical lenses used
in range finders and bomb sights; all of its nickel, which imparts hardness, toughness, and strengbh to steel for weapons; quartz crystals for
the oscillator plates required in military radios; industrial diamonds,
without which the efficiency of many industrial cutting tools would
be many times reduced; tan tali te, source of a rare metal required for
vacuum tubes; balsa wood for fast flying Mosquito bombers and for
the Navy's life rafts; mahogany for naval and military aircraft and
for P T boats, the 70-mile-an-hour miniature destroyers which spearheaded the invasion of Europe; loofa sponges, indispensable for filters
in marine engines; and natural rubber.
However, the contribution of imports to the war effort has been of
vital importance not only in these and other commodities in which the
United States is completely deficient, bufi also in those which we produce in appreciable and often in tremendous quantities at home.
18




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

19

We are the largest producer of copper in the world. Before the
war only negligible amounts of copper were imported into this country
for consumption. Yet copper is so basic a need for the production of
munitions that about a fifth of United States wartime consumption
has been supplied by imports. A considerable portion of these imports were .obtained in Latin America as a direct result of expanded
production under the stimulus of the Foreign Economic Administration foreign procurement program.
The significance of this contribution from abroad is suggested by
the fact that direct United States ammunition production alone consumed more than one-half as much copper as was imported during
1941-43.
Of great importance have been the imports of lead, which serves
as an alloy in many types of mechanized equipment, and zinc used
with copper to make brass for shell cases. I n fact there is hardly an
important mineral produced in the United States, except coal and
iron, which has not had to be supplemented by essential importation
during the present war.
We have had^to obtain overseas large quantities of mica, indispensable for the manufacture of communication units for ships, planes,
tanks, and infantry groups. Our huge wartime requirements far exceeded the capacity of our own domestic as well as Indian production.
Production therefore was stepped up sharply in Brazil and procurement was undertaken also in Mexico, Peru, Madagascar and elsewhere.
Naval and merchant ships must have quantities of rope, and most
of the fiber for cordage manufacture has to be imported. Castor oil
for lubrication in Flying Fortress and fighter-plane engines; molasses
for the alcohol used in making synthetic rubber and explosives; rotenone, to increase agricultural production by cutting down animal and
plant pests; red squill needed to kill food-destroying rodents in warehouses and ships; block talc for insulators for radio and detection
equipment; kapok for life preservers, and hog bristles for paint
brushes—important quantities of all these and other products have
had to be obtained in foreign areas.
I t has been the job of the Foreign Economic Administration and
its predecessor agencies to see that the United States obtained these
materials in time, in sufficient amounts, and in the most efficient
way possible. Even with world markets remaining open to importers,,
this would have been a tremendous task. B u t free access to many
world resources no longer existed.
Loss of Strategic Resources
Japanese successes in the Far East cut us off from the major and,,
in some cases, the only sources of certain vital raw materials. When




20

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

the Philippines fell, we lost our only source of Manila fiber, from which
all marine cordage was made, as well as an important source of chrome
ore. With the fall of Malaj^a and the East Indies, access to 90 percent of the world's natural rubber and 95 percent of its supply of
quinine was lost, as well as 75 percent of its tin production.
The subsequent closing of the Burma Koad not only eliminated the
most important means of getting war supplies into China, but simultaneously squeezed down to a thin trickle carried by air our needed
imports of tungsten, bristles and tin.
Submarine warfare added a further blow by whittling away the
shipping available for servicing the supply lines which still remained
open and by sinking many valuable cargoes en route.
German victories also cut off raw material resources from the
United Nations. For example, the U. S. S. K. had been the world's
largest producer of manganese. Early in 1942 the Germans occupied
the most important of the Eussian manganese fields at Nikopol,
which they held until last spring. Similarly, the German victories
deprived the Allies of important sources of nickel and iron ore in the
Scandinavian countries, and of smelting and refining facilities in the
Lowlands.
Finally, many areas still open were for some time threatened with
invasion. India, the principal source of high-grade mica, burlap, and
shellac, and our largest remaining source of manganese, was in grave
danger in 1942. Australia, a large producer of zinc, lead, and wool,
was threatened. Egypt, an important source of the special long-staple
cotton used in parachutes, stood in jeopardy until the late fall of 1942.
Fortunately, however, the enemy, long poised at Dakar in West
Africa and hoping for developments favorable to him which might
make invasion of Latin America possible, was driven out of North
and West Africa, thereby ending not only the menace to Latin
America but also to the rest of Africa. And United Nations forces
prevented him from overrunning India, Australia, and Free China.
F. E. A. Commodity Programs
In spite of all difficulties the United States has been able to obtain,
under the Foreign Economic Administration development and procurement programs, enough of the commodities which the War Production Board has required from abroad to maintain sharply increasing
war production. .,
In order to obtain sufficient quantities of many commodities from
these areas, production of raw materials from existing sources had to
be increased and new sources discovered and developed. Funds
loaned by the Export-Import Bank, one of the corporate agencies of




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

21

the Foreign Economic Administration, have facilitated production in
several countries of such resources.
Foreign Economic Administration missions have explored for
tantalite in the Belgian Congo, Nigeria, and Brazil. Production of
tantalite has doubled in the last two years.
Measures have also been undertaken to step up the output of
critically needed vegetable fats and oils for airplane lubricants and
other wartime purposes. Pursuant to the responsibilities assigned to
the Foreign Economic Administration in the Executive Order of
October 6, 1943, the agency stepped up procurement abroad of
essential foodstuffs needed for deficit areas.
Virtually our entire supply of cinchona bark—the source of natural
quinine, has had to be procured from the wild jungles and mountainsides of Latin America by Foreign Economic Administration missions.
Because it was unprofitable to strip these widely scattered trees, the
commercial development of quinine in the Western Hemisphere had
been virtually abandoned for sixty years. Nevertheless, enough
quinine has been secured from these areas since the outbreak of war
for many millions of antimalarial treatments. How important this is
to our armed forces may be judged by the fact t h a t early in the war
on some fronts malaria caused more casualties than all other factors
combined, including enemy action.
The extremely difficult job of procuring rubber from the vast reaches
of the Amazon River Basin has been carried on by the Rubber Development Corporation, now uuder the direction of the Foreign Economic Administration.
The Foreign Economic Administration was able to meet tremendously increased Army and Navy requirements for quartz crystals for
use in electronic equipment for the armed forces, through development
and procurement efforts carried on by mining engineers, inspectors,
and purchasing agents in Brazil. Almost overnight after Pearl
Harbor, Army and Navy requirements jumped from 31,000 pounds
a year to 2,000,000 pounds. This goal has been met.
Not only has it been necessary in many areas to build new roads,
hack new trails through jungles, and repair railroads in order to get
out strategic materials, but it has also^been necessary for the Foreign
Economic Administration to initiate programs for air transport of some
of the more important commodities. In the case of China, all strategic
commodities have had to be flown "over the h u m p " to India. Over
58,000,000 pounds of strategic materials were flown to India from
China in 1943 and the first six months of 1944 and over 10,300,000
pounds of strategic materials were brought into the United States
directly by air transport in the same period. The Foreign Economic




22

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

Administration is responsible for handling all nonmilitary cargo carried
by United States commercial and military planes operating abroad.
On the Pacific islands the Foreign Economic Administration, at the
request of the United States Navy, has carried out a successful program for provision of fresh foods to our armed forces stationed there.
Vegetable gardens have been planted on Guadalcanal and many other
islands close behind the fighting fronts and large quantities of fresh
corn, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, and other crops have been produced for our armed forces. I t is estimated that this year more than
50,000,000 pounds of produce will be grown on the islands, having a
value of several million dollars, and contributing substantially to
the saving of shipping space. Servicemen on these islands get fresh
fish as well as fresh vegetables, thanks to the provision of special fishing
kits and boats under this Navy-Foreign Economic Administration
program.
Last year approximately $800,000,000 worth of foreign strategic
materials were bought with Government funds under Foreign Economic Administration direction, exclusive of those purchased prechisively to keep them from the Axis. Commodities were bought by the
U. S. Commercial Company, one of the corporate agencies of the
Foreign Economic Administration, for importation under War Production Board or War Food Administration directives and were allocated and sold to war industries or for other war purposes in large part
through the facilities of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and
the Commodity Credit Corporation. The facilities and services of
private importers were utilized at some stage of practically all Foreign
Economic Administration procurement operations.
Under the over-all Foreign Economic Administration program,
private importers also purchased with their own funds large quantities
of these and other essential raw materials. The Government, where
necessary, assisted them in assuming some of the war risks—in carrying
increased insurance rates, or providing loans or technical assistance
or equipment which has helped to make their operations possible.
Prices Held Down
I n the last war, when the Government did not provide the assistance
and the market stabilizing influence made available in this war, prices
of many vital commodities rose far higher than they have in this war.
Raw Materials from the British Empire
Under arrangements made with the British in accordance with the
agreements announced last November, strategic raw materials and
commodities governmentally procured in the United Kingdom and the
British colonies are now provided to us as reverse lend-lease, without




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

METAL

PRICES

IN

1939-1943

FOREIGN ECONOMIC




TWO

WAR

PERIODS

AVERAGES'100

ADMINISTRATION

CHART 2

23

24

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

payment by us. These supplies include crude rubber and tea from
Ceylon, cocoa, palm4 kernels and palm oil, rope fibers, chrome, and
asbestos from British Africa, copra from the British islands of the
Pacific, and many other commodities needed for the United States
war effort. In addition, we are also receiving mica, burlap, jute, and
other strategic commodities on reverse lend-lease terms from India.
Government Purchases
The policy followed in foreign procurement has been to have the
United States Government engage in actual procurement only where
the required amounts of strategic commodities could not be brought
in effectively through ordinary commercial channels.
Pin chases have been made wich Government funds generally when
wartime needs for strategic co Jimodities were urgent or unpredictable
or the military deadline for delivery stringent; when it was difficult or
impossible for private importers to buy materials in a country where
there w^as inflation and to bring them in and sell them under the Office
of Price Administration ceilings; where shipping and insurance rates
were u p ; where the output of submarginal mines and high cost plantations was needed; where new aggregations of labor had to be recruited
and housed; where it was necessary to pay high prices to keep strategic
materials in neutral countries out of Axis hands; where it was necessary to build insurance stock piles both in this country and in foreign
ports; and where problems arising out of the liberation of Axis-dominated areas created situations which private trade could not meet.
Even in Government purchases, however, it has been Foreign
Economic Administration policy to encourage the greatest possible
participation by private businessmen so that their facilities, skill, and
experience would be used to the utmost.
Imports Up
United States imports of all commodities for consumption have
risen from $2,318,000,000 in 1939 to $3,377,000,000 in 1943 and have
continued to rise in 1944. Of the 1943 figure, an estimated $2,349,000,000 consisGed of imports which weie exclusively for private
account—a figure greater than total imports in 1939, when almost 35
percent of our imports were from areas since cut off by the enemy.
V-E Cut-back
The War Production Board has announced that after the defeat of
Germany it will be possible to cut back our war production substantially. This will make possible cut-backs in the foreign procure-




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

25

ment program for strategic and critical materials, although many will
still be needed for the continuing war against Japan. The adjustment
to this reduced procurement program will be made in such a way as to
prevent unnecessary financial losses to American taxpayers, to best
preserve our foreign relations and to strengthen the foundations for a
higher level of international trade after the war.

FOREIGN ECONOMIC

ADMINISTRATION
CHART 3

609567—41




4

CHAPTER IV

LEND-LEASE

Economic warfare operations, by weakening the enemy's economic
ability to carry on the war, have saved the lives of United States fighting men. Foreign procurement of the strategic materials we had to
have in order to produce enough weapons to give our forces overwhelming superiority over the enemy has also saved American lives.
And lend-lease, which has enabled our allies to hit our common enemies
harder blows than would otherwise have been possible, has likewise
saved the lives of our own and of allied fighting men.
For the Benefit of the United States
The legal title of the Lend-Lease Act is: " A n Act to Promote the
Defense of the United States", and that is the purpose which lendlease has been serving. The program which effectuates this objective
is a combined operation of many United States Government departments for which the Foreign Economic Administration exercises
over-all responsibility. Military equipment for lend-lease is supplied
by the War and Navy Departments. Foodstuffs, industrial materials
and equipment and other nonmilitary lend-lease goods are supplied
by the Foreign Economic Administration, with the aid of the Treasury
Department and the War Food Administration in domestic procurement and with the aid of the War Shipping Administration in arranging for transportation.
Before Pearl Harbor lend-lease promoted the defense of the United
States by helping the nations already fighting the Axis to hold the line
thus giving us time to increase our war production and train our armed
forces before we were attacked by the aggressors, who already gravely
threatened our own security and our future as free people. When the
attack came we were far better prepared than we would otherwise
have been and, instead of having to fight alone, we had strong partners
whose fighting power had been sustained with the help of lend-lease.
26




REPOgT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

27

Since Pearl Harbor lend-lease has been the principal supply instrument which has made it possible for the United Nations to fight,
successfully a real and effective war of coalition. The manpower
and productive resources of the United Nations have been combined
in such a way as to generate the maximum combined offensive power
against the enemy, regardless of the nationality of the men on the
firing lines or the national origin of the weapons they have used.
Each nation has contributed in proportion to its resources and to
the shifting requirements of the war. The United States, which has
the greatest productive resources, which has been far from the fighting fronts, and which has never been bombed, has been called upon
to contribute most in production. Our principal fighting allies, who
have been invaded or bombed, or both, have been called upon to
give more in lives and have suffered more in destruction.
Eighty-five percent of all that the United States has spent toward
winning this war has been for supplies and services used by our own
forces and here at home in the defense of the United States and the
winning of the war. Fifteen percent- has been spent for lend-lease

FOREIGN

ECONOMIC




ADMINISTRATION
CHART 4

28

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

supplies and services used by our allies toward winning the same war,
and, therefore, used equally in the interests of our own defense.
This 15 percent represents the total figure for lend-lease aid between
March 11, 1941, when the Lend-Lease Act was passed, and August 1,
1944: $29,660,000,000 of lend-lease transfers and services and $730,000,000 worth of lend-lease equipment consigned to United States
commanding generals and assigned in the field for the use of allied
forces.
TOTAL LEND-LEASE AID, MARCH 1941 THROUGH JULY 1944
Category

Amount

Goods transferred:
MunitioRs' (including shms)
Industrial materials and products
Agricultural products

.*_

Total transfer^
Services rendered:
Servicing and repair of ships, etc
Rental of ships, ferrying of aircraft, etc__
Production facilities in United States
Miscellaneous expenses
Total services
Total lend-lease aid
Consignments to commanding generals*
Field transfers**

Percent of total

$15, 569, 121, 000
6, 540, 726, 000
4, 016, 908, 000

52. 5
22. 1
13. 5

26, 126, 755, 000

88. 1

538, 069, 000
2, 275, 493, 000
621, 824, 000
98, 315, 000

1.8
7.7
2. 1
.3

3, 533, 701, 000

11.9

29, 660, 456, 000
658, 298, 000
69, 000, 000

100. 0

•Goods consigned to United States commanding generals for subsequent transfer in the field to lend-lease
countries.
"""Transfers of military supplies by United States commanders in the field from U. S. Army stocks to
lend-lease countries, to Apr. 30, 1944.
TABLE

1

Over 98 percent of these lend-lease war supplies and services have
been provided to our major fighting partners—the British Empire,
the Soviet Union, and- China, and to the forces of France and the other
countries long occupied by the Nazis which bravely carried on the
fight from exile and are now fighting effectively in the allied armies
of liberation.
Lend-Lease Aid to Latin America
Less than 1 percent of our lend-lease aid has gone to the republics
of Latin America. Only military aid and supplies for military,
naval and related purposes have been furnished to these countries




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

29

under lend-lease. This aid, although so small in dollars t h a t it
represents considerably less than what the United States spends in
a single day toward winning the war, has nevertheless had vitally
important results. With the aid of the military supplies provided
under lend-lease and the full cooperation in joint defense measures of
all our neighbor republics except Argentina, the security of the
Panama Canal and of the entire southern half of the Western Hemisphere has been made infinitely stronger than it has ever been before.
We have also been able to purchase from the Latin-American
republics through the full cooperation of their governments the greatly
increased quantities of strategic materials that were needed to enable
American industry to meet our war production goals. Without
these materials we could never have produced the tremendous numbers of planes, tanks, guns, ships, and other war equipment that are
nbw being used so effectively by our own fighting men and the.
fighting men of our allies to smash the Germans and the Japanese,
Planes, Tanks and Supplies
Some 31,000 planes, 26,900 tanks, and 637,600 other military motor
vehicles, besides vast quantities of other war materials, have been
sent to the forces of our allies under lend-lease through June 1944,
Yet only 15 percent of all the munitions produced in the United States
has been lend-leased. We have kept 82 percent for our own forces and
3 percent has been sold to our allies for cash.
Similarly the war production equipment and supplies sent to outallies have represented on the average an even smaller percentage of
our total output. And the food sent under lend-lease—almost all of
it to the British for their soldiers and war workers and to the Soviet
Union in order to sustain the rations of the Red Army—has accounted
for less than 10 percent of our total food supply.
British and Russian Production
The British, the Russians, and our other fighting allies have carried
on the war principally with supplies and equipment that they themselves produced. The British, for example, had turned out in their
own factories from the beginning of the war to the first of this year
90,000 planes, 83,000 tanks and other armored vehicles, and 1,000,000
trucks. They themselves manufactured over three quarters of all the
planes provided for the R. A. F . and the Royal Navy in 1943. The
factories of the Soviet Union have in general provided an even greater
percentage of the equipment used by the Soviet armies.
Lend-Lease Trucks and Food
What lend-lease has done is to fill critical deficiencies in the production and equipment of our allies. For example, half of the highway-




30

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

borne supplies for the advancing Soviet armies in the great offensives
this spring and summer on the eastern front were carried in American
lend-lease trucks. And the 10 percent of Britain's food supply that
has come from the United States has made it possible to maintain
the British food rations, at a level well below ours, but still sufficient
for fighting strength. Without lend-lease, the British might not have
had enough food to carry on.
Lend-Lease on the Battle Fronts
The damage to our enemies which our allies have been able to do
with the lend-lease supplies we have sent them is the major benefit
which the United States receives under the Lend-Lease Act. Lendlease is not and never has been either a loan of money or a charity.
Lend-lease aid is provided " t o promote the defense of the United
States'' and for no other purpose. The battles our allies have been and
will be able to win with the help of lend-lease, the millions of Germans
and Japanese our men won't have to face because our allies have killed
or captured them—these—and victory—are priceless contributions to
the security of our own country.

FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION




CHART 6

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

31

Reverse Lend-Lease
We have received in addition, however, over $3,000,000,000 worth
of supplies and services for our forces and merchant marine overseas
as reverse lend-lease aid, without payment by us. Most of this aid
has been provided by the British Commonwealth. Neither the Soviet
Union nor China, both invaded and ravaged by great forces of the
enemy, have been in a position to give us reverse lend-lease aid in
any volume, nor has the occasion for such aid arisen.
The aid provided to us by the British has included such items as
2,250 airplanes and gliders for the United States Army Air Forces;
transport on British ships of several hundred thousand United States
troops in the first quarter of 1944 alone; substantial repairs to United
States warships at Royal Navy dockyards in the Mediterranean, the
United Kingdom and elsewhere; hundreds of millions of dollars worth
of construction and supplies for United States Air Force and Army
bases and camps in the United Kingdom, together with nearly 1,000
blocks of apartments, hotels, offices, and estates requisitioned for our
military personnel; locally produced fruits, vegetables, and other
foods, including fresh eggs, although British civilians themselves get
only an average of 2 fresh eggs a month. We have also received from
the British thousands of other categories of equipment, supplies, and
services as reverse lend-lease.
Australia and New Zealand have provided as reverse lend-lease over
95 percent of all the food used by our forces in the Pacific areas under
General MacArthur's command, besides furnishing our forces with
many other supplies and services without payment by us. In recent
months their reverse lend-lease aid to us has been running at a higher
monthly rate than our shipments of lend-lease supplies to them.
REVERSE LEND-LEASE AID
[Furnished to United States Forces and Merchant Shipping OverseasJ
Jan. 1-Apr. 1, 1944

United Kingdom
Australia
New Zealand
Total

Cumulative to Apr. 1,1944

$370, 760, 000
95, 258, 000
17, 482, 000

$1, 934, 400, 000
457, 623, 000
109, 368, 000

*483, 500, 000

*2, 501, 391, 000

•Figures for Jan. 1-Apr. 1,1944, are preliminary.
NOTE: The above table does not include the amount of aid furnished by India, the U. S. S. R.f and China.
The total amount of reverse lend-lease aid received to June 30,1944 was in excess of $3,000,000,000.




TABLE 2

32

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION




LOCATION OF F.E.A. OVERSEAS STAFFS
SEPTEMBER

CHART 5

12, 1944

33

34

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

The Soviet Union has also provided us with reverse lend-lease aid
in connection with our shuttle-bombing bases.
Although not technically reverse lend-lease, the bases from which
our B-29 Super Fortresses bomb Japan were built by 400,000 Chinese
laborers, almost literally with their bare hands.
We have, in addition, received from the British a great deal of
vital aid that does not appear in the dollar figures of reverse lendlease at all. The British were at war for over two years before we
were attacked. They have placed freely at our disposal blueprints
for engines, bomb-sights, radar and submarine devices, training films,
and other data resulting from their longer battle experience. We
might have spent years and many thousands of lives in amassing
this information. We received it without payment, and even without any dollar valuation being put upon it, as reverse lend-lease.
Lend-Lease and Final Victory
After the final defeat of Germany has been accomplished and made
secure, the lend-lease program will continue for the war against
Japan. Through lend-lease we have advanced greatly the winning
of complete victory over Germany and have thus saved the lives of
many tens of thousands of American boys as well as the fives of allied
fighting men and civilians.
By fighting this war together with our allies as a United Nations
war we have transformed the threat of disaster to the prospect of
early victory. By continuing to fight as United Nations until the
end, we shall make certain of winning the kind of victory that will
lay the basis for a lasting peace.




CHAPTER V

EXPORT CONTROLS

Six days after the Nazis struck at the Low Countries and France,
the President on M a y 16, 1940, asked Congress for two special appropriations for expansion of the Army and Navy. The United States
emergency war supply program is generally dated from the time these
appropriations, amounting to more than $2,500,000,000, were made
available in June.
Shortly thereafter, on July 2, 1940, Congress enacted a statute
entitled " A n Act to Expedite the Strengthening of the National Defense" which authorized the President to prohibit or curtail exports not
in the interests of the national defense of the United States. T h a t
was the beginning of wartime export controls.
Purpose of Controls
From the beginning export controls have been used for one purpose
only, to strengthen the defense of the United States and—after we were
attacked—to bring about the defeat of our enemies at the earliest
possible moment.
Through these controls supplies from the United States have been
prevented from reaching our enemies; what was needed for the United
States' own war effort and civilian requirements has been conserved
at home; and commercial exports have been channeled in line with
strategic priorities to our fighting allies and to other friendly nations
producing supplies for our war production.
To accomplish these objectives, export control procedures have been
established to ensure that our critical supplies flowed to the right
places at the right time and did not go to the wrong places. The
essential requirements of the countries to be supplied were analyzed,
estimated and programmed against the background of over-all export
requirements and total United States supplies. Then exports were
licensed in accordance with established control policies.




35

36

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

Expansion of Controls
During four years of operation, the scope and the methods of export
control have changed to meet varying war requirements. Beginning
with a proclamation on July 2, 1940, listing some 40 commodities to be
placed under export control, the number of such commodities continued to grow until, on December 22, 1941, export control was extended
to cover all articles and materials, except exports to Canada, since
Canadian and United States war production was treated as a single,
integrated whole. By 1943 some 2,500 commodities and commodity
groups were under direct export control. These commodities have
been handled by approximately 16,000 United States business firms
dealing in exports and have been consigned to thousands of individuals
and firms in more than 140 different foreign countries. The Foreign
Economic Administration receives several thousand applications for
export licenses every day and the annual volume has ranged between
1,500,000 and 2,000,000 applications.
Programming
In order to formulate accurately the essential requirements of
friendly countries, Foreign Economic Administration missions in the
field check and evaluate the needs and assist in the preparation of the
requirements programs. In Washington the proposed requirements
of each country or area are reviewed as to consistency with export
policy, the end uses to which the commodities will be put, the United
States supply situation, and the relative urgency of need of the various
importing countries from the point of view of winning the war.
When the requirements programs have received final Foreign Economic Administration approval they are then submitted to the War
Production Board (or the War Food Administration in the case of food
products). Foreign Economic Administration representatives sit on
the various divisional requirements committees of the War Production
Board and War Food Administration with representatives of the armed
services and other Government agencies responsible for war production and civilian needs.
Similar screening and allocations procedures apply in the case of
lend-lease exports, except that military and naval equipment is lendleased through the Munitions Assignments Board. All lend-lease aid
is provided to carry out the strategic directives of the Combined
Chiefs of Staff. ,
Types of Licensing
Wartime control of commercial exports is exercised through a
variety of licenses. In its most common form, an exporter must file an
application for an individual license which includes such information




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

37

about a proposed shipment as country of destination, consignee,
quantity and value of shipment, and description of what use is to be
made of the article in question. The application is checked against
the Proclaimed List and is reviewed for conformity with the export
program established for the country and commodity involved. On
the basis of the review, a license may be approved, denied, or modified.
The general license, in effect, provides general authority to export
without obtaining a specific license. This type of license is limited by
and large (1) to commodities in relatively easy supply, e. g., cement,
and (2) to destinations in allied nations.
A blanket license is a kind of multiple individual license which
authorizes an exporter to ship the same commodity to a number of
consignees and purchasers in the same country. Its use has been
limited to a selected list of commodities and to trade only with the
American republics.
The project license authorizes the exportation of all articles and
commodities required for maintenance, repair and operating supplies
for approved foreign enterprises, such as mining companies whose
production of strategic metals is destined for our war production
program. I t also authorizes exportation of such supplies needed for
construction or installation by foreign enterprises which are contributing directly to our war production program.
Trade Relations Staff
To ensure that necessary war controls over exports entail the minimum dislocation of normal export business, a Trade Relations Staff
is set up within Foreign Economic Administration to act as liaison with
business firms dealing in'exports and imports. This staff has created
a mechanism for systematic consultation with the commercial export
trade—including an Export Advisory Committee, composed of outstanding exporters and 20 industry advisory committees and groups.
In addition to the Trade Relations Staff, an Exporters Service Section
works directly with individual exporters on their specific day-to-day
problems.
Increase in U. S. Exports
I t is noteworthy that the operations of export control under a policy
of rationing short supplies equitably among consumers and among producers and exporters has had the effect of preserving business opportunities which would otherwise have been substantially impaired by
the inevitable dislocations of war.
In spite of war demands, wartime controls on our production of consumer goods, shipping shortages, and other handicaps, the dollar volume of our commercial export trade (exclusive of lend-lease) with those




38

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

FOREIGN ECONOMIC

ADMINISTRATION
CHART 7

areas that Axis conquests left open to us has actually increased since
the war began. I n 1943 the value of commercial exports from the
United States of civilian-type goods financed by commercial arrangements was $2,235,000,000, compared with the pre-war 1936-38 average
to non-Axis-controlled areas of $1,900,000,000. This is a remarkable
record and is in sharp contrast to the experience of the United Kingdom, for example, whose commercial exports have declined more than
50 percent in value and 70 percent in volume since the beginning of
the war.
By making compliance with the maximum export prices established
by the Office of Price Administration a prerequisite for obtaining an
export license, the Foreign Economic Administration has not only
aided in the control of inflation by countries which are heavily dependent on imports from the United States, but has thereby helped t o
minimize the costs of United States procurement in those very areas.
Commercial exports from the United States in the first six months
of 1944 were by value at an annual rate higher than the pre-war average of exports to all areas, including those areas since cut off by the
Axis, and the rate has been rising steadily for over a year. Including
lend-lease, total United States exports in the first six months of 1944
were at an annual rate of over $14,400,000,000, nearly three times
the highest peacetime level.




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

39

Lend-Lease Introduces U. S. Products
While a major part of lend-lease exports has consisted of military
equipment, lend-lease has also introduced to countries all over the
world thousands of other American products—from trucks and
machine tools to packaged foods—in a volume and variety never
approached before. After the war the people of many countries will
want to continue to obtain these and similar products from us by
buying them.
Latin American Trade
Our commercial exports to Latin America, except Argentina, have
increased by more than 50 percent over pre-war levels. These
exports have fulfilled the undertaking made by the United States
at the Rio de Janeiro Conference of Foreign Ministers in January 1942
to make available the minimum essential civilian imports needed by
these countries to enable them to play their full part in hemisphere
defense, in the provision of strategic materials for our war production,
and in other effective measures against the Axis.
U. S. TRADE WITH LATIN AMERICA*
[Millions of dollars]
1936-38 average

Exports
Imports

489
535

1941

902
981

1942

683
977

1943

721
1,310

1944**

929
1,646

•The 20 Latin American republics.
**First 6 months at annual rate.
TABLE 3

U. S. and World Trade
The United States has been, able to mobilize its resources for the
war to such an extent that we have not only become the principal
arsenal of democracy, but also the world's foremost exporter of commercial goods.
I t has always been the policy of the Foreign Economic Administration to encourage private foreign trade so far as possible in accordance
with the primary objective of winning the war as quickly as possible.
A greatly expanded United States foreign trade after the war will be
essential to the maintenance of high production levels and full employment in this country.




40

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

Controls Relaxed
As we have approached closer to complete victory over Germany,
successive relaxations of export controls have been instituted.
As the shipping shortage has eased, the Foreign Economic Administration has progressively rolled back since the first of the year the
decentralization procedure governing exports to the other American
republics. Decentralization was instituted originally because the
shortage of shipping to carry our exports to Latin America was so
stringent that it was only fair to give the countries of importation a
voice in deciding which of many essential supplies they needed most
urgently. This was done through a system of requiring import recommendations from the countries concerned for most commodities before
export licenses could be issued. This requirement has now been
abolished except for a relatively few categories.
Similarly the program license procedure governing exports of most
supplies not on general license to the British Empire, the Soviet Union,
the Middle East, and French, Belgian, and Dutch possessions, will be
discontinued October 1. After that date it will no longer be necessary
for exporters to file release certificates with foreign purchasing missions
for exports to these areas. Instead, exporters will apply for export
licenses to the Foreign Economic Administration on the standard
application form and it will be necessary only for them to obtain the
regular individual export licenses from the Foreign Economic Administration.
Among other steps that have also been taken this year to encourage
private trade are the restoration to normal trade channels of most
civilian textile, drug, and pharmaceutical exports to the Middle East,
and similar action in the case of most goods exported to the French
West Indies.
After the defeat of Germany a still greater relaxation of controls
over exports to allied countries will be possible. This relaxation will
be in line with the relaxation of the War Production Board controls
over strategic commodities. Its extent will be governed primarily
by the paramount needs of the continuing war against Japan. Availability of shipping may also be a limiting factor and some controls
may also be necessary to conserve supplies needed for domestic production in the face of heavy export demands for essential civilian
supplies to repair the devastation and destruction abroad.




CHAPTER

VI

LIBERATED AREAS

The smashing United Nations offensives which have broken through
Nazi defenses in Europe and will soon totally destroy Nazi power,
have been made possible because of the steady flow direct to the fighting fronts of enormous quantities of war materiel—of tanks, guns,
planes, gasoline, and other supplies.
Also essential to the success of our offensives has been the provision by the Army of basic minimum civilian supplies to the devastated
and plundered areas being freed from Axis domination. This program is an integral part of our military operations.
Food, clothing, fuel, medicines, and repair materials for transportation lines, power plants, and other utilities are urgently required in
order to prevent epidemics and starvation in the liberated areas behind
our lines, and to enable the liberated peoples to support our military
forces in the prosecution of the war.
I t is the responsibility of the Foreign Economic Administration to
supply those civilian commodities which the Army requests it to
obtain. These have included some of the civilian supplies already
provided in Italy and in France by United States forces. I n these
instances the receiving countries pay for such supplies in accordance
with their ability to do so.
Nazi Destruction
The liberating allied armies have found in both Italy and France
widespread devastation and suffering. Similar conditions will confront us in other countries as they are liberated.
During four years of occupation, the Germans did serious damage to France's industry and agriculture, and to her people. There
has been much additional destruction and disruption of the French
economy in the battles that have been fought on French soil since
our landings in Normandy.




41

42

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

I n Italy the Germans have deliberately destroyed economic resources at every opportunity. Five thousand German troops were
employed for several weeks to wreck the public utilities and industries
of Naples. I n the area north of Rome they destroyed over 90 percent of the electric power facilities as they retreated and also destroyed
highways, railroads, bridges, and communication systems as well as
factories, water facilities, stocks of civilian goods and public buildings. Added to this has been destruction caused by military operations. As a result, in many areas of Italy there has been a serious
shortage of vital necessities such as food, clothing, and medical supplies, and almost insurmountable distribution problems.
Aid to Italy
Both the United States and the United Kingdom armed forces have
been furnishing civilian supplies behind the lines in Italy in an effort
to meet at least the most urgent of these needs. By the middle of
July over $100,000,000 of supplies for civilian consumption, including
fuel, had been sent into Italy under this program. About four-fifths
of this amount had been provided by the United States, including
most of the food. The British Commonwealth has provided almost
all of the coal, much of the agricultural, and a great many miscellaneous supplies, and is now supplying much of the wheat. These supplies have helped to keep life going in Italy, but much additional
assistance will be necessary.
Combined Civil Affairs Committee
Basic policies for the administration of the areas liberated by the
United States and British armies during the military period are
determined b y the Combined Civil Affairs Committee of the Combined
Chiefs of Staff. This committee has called upon the Foreign Economic Administration and its predecessor agencies for information
and recommendations with regard to the various economic problems
arising in areas occupied by the United Nations.
Among other specific casks assigned the Foreign Economic Administration has been the preparation, frequently in collaboration with
the Office of Strategic Services, of Civil Affairs Guides for the use of
military authorities in liberated areas. In addition to this work, the
Foreign Economic Administration is also called upon by the Army for
special reports in relation to current operating problems.
As the allied armies move forward and liberated areas cease to be
zones of military operations, the job of emergency relief and rehabilitation will be turned over by the military authorities to the United
Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and to the respective governing authorities of the areas concerned.




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

43

U. N. R. R. A.
The Foreign Economic Administration procures supplies in this
country for the United Nations Kelief and Eehabilitation Administration, administers the United States appropriation to U. N . R. R. A.,
and works with paying governments to help them secure United States
supplies.
The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration,
established nearly a year ago, is a cooperative undertaking of 44
nations to provide the distressed peoples of the liberated areas with
the emergency assistance that is essential to enable them to help
themselves. Entirely aside from reasons of humanity, the sooner
t h a t liberated areas get back on their own feet, the sooner we will
have a sound foundation for the peace and the sooner trade with these
areas not only can be restored, but expanded beyond pre-war levels.
The industry and agriculture of the liberated countries will themselves furnish by far the greater part of the supplies the peoples of
these countries will need. I t is estimated that between 90 and 95
percent of all supplies used in liberated Europe will be produced in
Europe itself.
The total amount that the contributing members are to make available to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
is about $2,000,000,000. The United States contribution is limited
to $1,350,000,000. Of this amount Congress has appropriated
$450,000,000 and authorized the transfer from lend-lease funds of
$350,000,000 worth of additional supplies, services or funds to be spent
by U. N . R. R. A. with the approval of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In the case of non-enemy countries without sufficient financial resources, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
will finance import purchases of civilian supplies. The countries of
eastern Europe—Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Greece—
will probably need assistance of this kind. However, over 90 percent
of the commodities procured for them, it is expected, will be sold for
local currency instead of distributed as direct relief.
The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration will
not establish any organization for the direct distribution of relief
except m the most destitute areas where local governmental authorities
do not exist or where they cannot provide administrative assistance
in the distribution and allocation of goods. I n general the United
Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration will turn over the
supplies which it provides to local governing authorities for distribution through ordinary channels of commerce.




44

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

The liberated nations of occupied Europe will not be poor relations.
They do not desire charity. They have made it clear that they wish
so far as they possibly can to take care of their own needs.
To the extent that any of the liberated nations have goods and
production facilities, they will use those goods and facilities for their
own needs, and for the needs of their neighbors.
To the extent that they have funds, they will purchase the supplies
they need. I t is considered probable that the countries of western
Europe can afford to and will pay in dollars, gold or on credit terms
for most of their imported relief supplies. In fact, probably more
than half of all post-military civilian supplies sent to Europe from
the United States will be paid for.
A liberated country with enough money to buy what it wants is
under an obligation to clear through the United Nations Relief and
Rehabilitation Administration and the Combined Boards, so that a
fair distribution of short supplies can be assured.
F. E. A. and U. N. R. F . A.
The Foreign Economic Administration, by virtue of its responsibility for our lend-lease and foreign procurement programs, and its
control over export trade, is able to coordinate the procurement and
disposal of supplies for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation
Administration and for the purchasing governments with all other
demands from overseas for our goods, and to recommend adjustments
of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration's
programs in accordance with the limitations of United States production and supply.
Advance procurement for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration of available relief goods has been undertaken
so that reserve stocks can be accumulated which will be needed in
some areas in the near future.
I n addition there are civilian-type supplies stocked for lend-lease or
Army needs that can be transferred to the use of the United Nations
Relief and Rehabilitation Administration when military needs in the
European theater decline.
Insofar as the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, or the governments of the liberated countries, call upon the
United States Government for supplies, the Foreign Economic Administration will obtain them either from lend-lease, Army, or other
Government stocks, if they are available, or by placing requisitions
through the Procurement Division of the Treasury Department, or
through the War Food Administration.
If the Combined Food Board indicates that the United States is
the most appropriate source of supply for a particular item of food
which the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

45

wishes to procure, the latter will request the Foreign Economic Administration to purchase this item. The Foreign Economic Administration will in turn arrange for its procurement through the War Food
Administration, charging the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration appropriation for the purchase.
If, for example, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration requests from the United States so many thousand pounds
of clothing for the people of Greece, the Foreign Economic Administration may be able to furnish the clothes out of reclaimed Army or
other stocks.
Problems of Displaced Persons.
One of the most terrible, and tragic situations which will face the
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in Europe—
and later in China—will be the many millions of homeless and displaced
persons. They include those whom the Nazis have transported into
Germany to work under slave labor conditions, political and religious
exiles and all those who have been driven from their homes by military
operations.
The greatest migrations of modern times will be involved in the
return of these peoples to the homes from which they have fled or been
driven. The task of organizing these migrations on an orderly basis is
gigantic. Clothing and temporary shelter must be provided. Already
the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration is
operating refugee camps in North Africa and the Middle East.
Similar camps in other areas will doubtless have to be established.
Most of the supplies for these camps come from the United States,
and it is the Foreign Economic Administration which purchases and
turns over to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration the items needed.
The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration's
displaced persons and health services will, it is expected, be utilized
by virtually all liberated countries—both those which will buy their
own relief supplies and those which will receive their relief supplies
from United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.
I t is generally agreed that the United Nations must continue to
work together not only in winning complete military victory but in
making that victory secure. As our enemies are driven from the
countries they have invaded and oppressed, it is necessary that the
peoples freed;from their tyranny not be abandoned by the United
Nations to face starvation, disease, and ruin. I t is imperative that the
liberated peoples be helped to the point where they have the strength
to help themselves and join us as self-supporting nations in laying the
groundwork for a secure peace in which the economic prosperity of
ourselves and all nations may be advanced.




46
REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION




CPABT 8

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

EXPORT CONTROL ACT

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, T h a t section 6 of
the Act of July 2, 1940 (54 Stat. 714), is hereby amended to read
as follows:
" S E C . 6. (a) The President is hereby authorized to prohibit or
curtail the exportation of any articles, technical data, materials, or
supplies, except under such rules and regulations as he shall prescribe.
"(b) Unless the President shall otherwise direct, the functions
and duties of the President under this section shall be performed
by the Board of Economic Warfare.
" (c) In case of the violation of any provision of any proclamation,
rule, or regulation issued hereunder, such violator or violators, upon
conviction, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000, or
by imprisonment for not more than two years, or by both such fine
and imprisonment.
"(d) The authority granted by this section shall terminate on
June 30, 1944, or upon any prior date which the Congress by concurrent resolution, or the President, may designate; except that as
to offenses committed, or rights or liabilities incurred prior to such
date, the provisions of this section and such rules, regulations, and
proclamations shall be treated as remaining in effect for the purpose
of sustaining any suit, action, or prosecution with respect to such
right, liability, or offense."
Approved, June 30, 1942.
(This law has been extended to June 30, 1945, by Public Paw 397,
78th Congress, approved July 1, 1944.)




47

A P P E N D I X II

LEND-LEASE ACT

Further to promote the defense of the United States, and for other
purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled, T h a t this Act may be cited as
"An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States."
Section 2
As used in this Act—
(a) The term "defense article'' means—
(1) Any weapon, munition, aircraft, vessel, or boat;
(2) Any machinery, facility, tool, material, or supply necessary
for the manufacture, production, processing, repair, servicing, or
operation of any article described in this subsection;
(3) Any component material or part of or equipment for any
article described in this subsection;
(4) Any agricultural, industrial, or other commodity or article
for defense.
Such term "defense article'' includes any article described in this subsection manufactured or procured pursuant to section 3, or to which
the United States or any foreign government has or hereafter acquires
title, possession, or control.
(b) The term "defense information" means any plan, specification,
design, prototype, or information pertaining to any defense article.
Section 3
(a) Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, the President
may, from time to time, when he deems it in the interest of national
defense, authorize the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy,
or the head of any other department or agency of the Government—
(1) To manufacture in arsenals, factories, and shipyards under
their jurisdiction, or otherwise procure, to the extent to which
funds are made available therefor, or contracts are authorized
from time to time by the Congress, or both, any defense article
for the government of any country whose defense the President
deems vital to the defense of the United States.
(2) To sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise
dispose of, to any such government, any defense article, but no
defense article not manufactured or procured under paragraph (1)
shall in any way be disposed of under this paragraph except after
consultation with the Chief of Staff of the Army or the Chief of
Naval Operations of the Navy, or both. The value of defense
articles disposed of in any way under authority of this paragraph,
48




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

49

and procured from funds heretofore appropriated, shall not exceed
$1,300,000,000. The value of such defense articles shall be determined by the head of the department or agency concerned or
such other department, agency, or officer as shall be designated
in the manner provided in the rules and regulations issued hereunder. Defense articles procured from funds hereafter appropriated to any department or agency of the Government, other
than from funds authorized to be appropriated under this Act,
shall not be disposed of in any way under authority of this paragraph except to the extent hereafter authorized by the Congress
in the Acts appropriating such funds or otherwise.
(3) To test, inspect, prove, repair, outfit, recondition, or otherwise to place in good working order, to the extent to which, funds
are made available therefor, or contracts are authorized from
time to time by the Congress or both, any defense article for any
such government, or to procure any or all such services by private
contract.
(4) To communicate to any such government any defense information, pertaining to any defense article furnished to such
government under paragraph (2) of this subsection.
(5) To release for export any defense article disposed of in any
way under this subsection to any such government.
(b) The terms and conditions upon which any such foreign government receives any aid authorized under subsection (a) shall be those
which the President deems satisfactory, and the benefit to the United
States may be payment or repayment in kind or property, or any
other direct or indirect benefit which the President deems satisfactory.
(c) After June 30, 1943, or after the passage of a concurrent resolution by the two Houses before June 30, 1943, which declares that the
powers conferred by or pursuant to subsection (a) are no longer necessary to promote the defense of the United States, neither the President
nor the head of any department or agency shall exercise any of the
powers conferred by or pursuant to subsection (a); except that until
July 1, 1946, any of such powers may be exercised to the extent necessary to carry out a contract or agreement with such a foreign government made before July 1, 1943, or before the passage of such concurrent resolution, whichever is the earlier.
(d) Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or to
permit the authorization of convoying vessels by naval vessels of the
United States.
(e) Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or to permit
the authorization of the entry of any American vessel into a combat
area in violation of section 3 of the Neutrality Act of 1939.
Section 4
All co ntracts or agreements made for the disposition of any defense
articl e or defense information pursuant to section 3 shall contain a
clause by which the foreign government undertakes that it will not,
without the consent of the President, transfer title to or possession of
such defense articles or defense information by gift, sale, or otherwise,
or permit its use by anyone not an officer, employee, or agent of such
foreign government.




50

REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

Section 5
(a) The Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, or the head
of any other department or agency of the Government involved shall,
when any such defense article or defense information is exported, immediately inform the department or agency designated by the President to administer section 6 of the Act of July 2, 1940 (54 Stat. 714),
of the quantities, character, value, terms of disposition, and destination of the article and information so exported.
(b) The President, from time to time, but not less frequently than
once every ninety days, shall transmit to the Congress a report of
operations under this Act except such information as he deems incompatible with the public interest to disclose. Reports provided for
under this subsection shall be transmitted to the Secretary of the
Senate or the Clerk of the House of Representatives, as the case may
be, if the Senate or the House of Representatives, as the case may be,
is not in session.
Section 6
(a) There is hereby authorized to be appropriated from time to
time, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated,
such amounts as may be necessary to carry out the provisions and
accomplish the purposes of this Act.
(b) All money and all property which is converted into money received under section 3 from any government shall, with the approval
of the Director of the Budget, revert to the respective appropriation
or appropriations out of which funds were expended with respect to
the defense article or defense information for which such consideration is received, and shall be available for expenditure for the purpose
for which such expended funds were appropriated by law, during the
fiscal year in which such funds are received and the ensuing fiscal
year; but in no event shall any funds so received be available for expenditure after June 30, 1948.
Section 7
The Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and the head of
the department or agency shall, in all contracts or agreements for the
disposition of any defense article or defense information, fully protect
the rights of all citizens of the United States who have patent rights
in and to any such article or information which is hereby authorized
to be disposed of and the payments collected for royalties on such
patents shall be paid to the owner and holders of such patents.
Section 8
The Secretaries of War and of the Navy are hereby authorized to
purchase or otherwise acquire arms, ammunition, and implements of
war produced within the jurisdiction of any country to which section
3 is applicable, whenever the President deems such purchase or acquisition to be necessary in the interests of the defense of the United
States.




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

51

Section 9
The President may, from time to time, promulgate such rules and
regulations as may be necessary and proper to carry out any of the
provisions of this Act; and he may exercise any power or authority
conferred on him by this Act through such department, agency, or
officer as he shall direct.
Section 10
Nothing in this Act shall be construed to change existing law relating
to the use of the land and naval forces of the United States, except
insofar as such use relates to the manufacture, procurement, and repair
of defense articles, the communication of information and other noncombatant purposes enumerated in this Act.
Section 11
If any provision of this Act or the application of such provision to
any circumstance shall be held invalid, the validity of the remainder
of the Act and the applicability of such provision to other circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

# ft ft
On March 11, 1943, after affirmative votes of 407-6 in the House of
Representatives and 82-0 in the Senate the President signed the Act
extending the Lend-Lease Act until July 1, 1944.
On April 19, 1944, by vote of 344-21, the House of Representatives
voted to extend the Lend-Lease Act until July 1, 1945, with the following amendment to Section 3 (b) of the Act as follows (new matter
in italics):
" T h e terms and conditions upon which any such foreign government
receives any aid authorized under subsection (a) shall be those which
the President deems satisfactory, and the benefit to the United States
may be payment or repayment in kind or property, or any other direct
or indirect benefit which the President deems satisfactory: Provided,
however, That nothing in this paragraph shall be construed to authorize
the President in any final settlement to assume or incur any obligations
on the part of the Lnited States with respect to post-war economic policy,
post-war military policy, or any post-war policy involving international
relations except in accordance with established constitutional procedure."
On May 8, 1944, by vote of 63-1, the Senate also voted to extend
the Act, with the same amendment as that adopted by the House
except for deletion of the words " i n any final settlement." On
M a y 12 the House concurred in this change made by the Senate.
On May 17 the President signed the Act.




APPENDIX

III

EXECUTIVE ORDER PROVIDING FOR THE UNIFYING
FOREIGN ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

OF

By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and
the Statutes of the United States, particularly by the First War
Powers Act, 1941, as President of the United States and as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, and in order to provide for
the more effective unification of the agencies concerned with foreign
economic affairs, it is hereby ordered hs follows:
1. The Board of Economic Warfare, existing pursuant to paragraph 2 of Executive Order No. 8839, July 30, 1941, as amended by
Executive Order No. 8982, December 17, 1941, is terminated. There
is established in the Office for Emergency Management an Office of
Economic Warfare, at the head of which shall be a Director, appointed
by the President, who shall exercise the functions, powers, and duties
of the Board of Economic Warfare. The Director shall receive such
salary, travel, subsistence, or other allowances as the President may
determine.
There are transferred to the Office of Economic Warfare for use in
connection with the exercise and performance of its functions, powers,
and duties so much of the unexpended balances, appropriations, allocations, and other funds now available for, as well as all personnel,
property, and records heretofore used in the administration of the
functions, powers, and duties of, the Board of Economic Warfare.
No part of any funds appropriated or made available under Public
139, approved July 12, 1943, shall be used, directly or indirectly, after
August 15, 1943, by the Office of Economic .Warfare for the procurement of services, supplies, or equipment outside the United States
except for the purpose of executing general economic programs or
policies formally approved in writing by a majority of the War
Mobilization Committee and such writing has been filed with the
Secretary of State prior to any such expenditure.
2. The United States Commercial Company, the Rubber Development Corporation, the Petroleum Reserve Corporation, and the
Export-Import Bank of Washington and their functions, powers, and
duties, together with the functions, powers, and duties of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and of .the Secretary of Commerce
with respect to them, are transferred to the Office of Economic Warfare. All personnel, property, records, funds (including all unexpended balances of appropriations, allocations, or other funds now
available), contracts, assets, liabilities, and capital stock of these corporations, together with so much of the personnel, records, and property of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation used in the administration of these corporations as the Director of the Bureau of the
Budget shall determine, are transferred with these corporations to the
52




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

53

Office of Economic Warfare for use in connection with the exercise
and performance of its functions, powers, and duties. The Director
of the Office of Economic Warfare may reconstitute the boards of
directors of these corporations and take such other action as he deems
necessary in respect of them to carry out the purposes of this Order,
3. (a) Until such time as the Congress shall provide other means of
financing, the Secretary of Commerce and the Reconstruction Finance
Corporation are authorized and directed to supply necessary funds to
the corporations transferred to the Office of Economic Warfare by
this Order through loans, using for this purpose all the borrowing
powers and unobligated funds of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Such funds shall be supplied at such times and in such amounts
and in such manner and upon such terms and conditions as the Director of War Mobilization, on the request of the Director of the Office
of Economic Warfare, may from time to time determine. The disbursement of the funds so supplied shall be under the exclusive
direction of the Director of the Office of Economic Warfare, except
as otherwise provided in this Order.
(b) The functions, powers, and duties and outstanding contracts
and obligations relating to activities and transactions in or pertaining
to foreign countries, now vested in, or in the name of, any corporation created and organized under Section 5 (d) of the Reconstruction
Finance Corporation Act, or of any other corporation organized by
the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, shall, unless the Director
of War Mobilization otherwise determines, be transferred to the
corporation or corporations designated by the Director of the Office
of Economic Warfare, and the charter and bylaws of the corporations
affected by such transfers, so far as necessary, shall be amended
accordingly. Following such transfers, no corporations created and
organized by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, other than
those transferred to the Office of Economic Warfare by this Order,
shall exercise any of its powers and functions in regard to any activity
or transaction in or pertaining to any foreign country except as
ordered by the Director of War Mobilization. The Secretary of
Commerce, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and any corporation organized by it, shall execute and deliver all instruments
which may be deemed necessary by the Director of War Mobilization
to carry out the provisions of this Order.
4. The functions of the Office of War Mobilization shall include the
authority to arrange for the unification and coordination of the
activities of the Federal Government relating to foreign supply, foreign
procurement, and other foreign economic affairs in conformity with
the foreign policy of the United States as defined by the Secretary of
State. In providing for such unification the Office of War Mobilization may utilize the facilities of other departments and agencies, including the machinery for the coordination of foreign economic affairs
established in the Department of State.
5. All prior Executive orders and directives in so far as they are in
conflict herewith are amended accordingly.
FRANKLIN D .
T H E WHITE HOUSE,




July 15, 1943.
[Executive Order 9361]

ROOSEVELT.

APPENDIX

IV

EXECUTIVE ORDER ESTABLISHING FOREIGN ECONOMIC
ADMINISTRATION
B y virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the
statutes of the United States, as President of the United States and
Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, and in order to unify and
consolidate governmental activities relating to foreign economic
affairs, it is hereby ordered as follows:
1. There is established in the Office for Emergency Management of
the Executive Office of the President the Foreign Economic Administration (hereinafter referred to as the Administration), at the head of
which shall be an Administrator.
2. The Office of Lend-Lease Administration, the Office of Foreign'
Relief and Rehabilitation Operations, the Office of Economic Warfare
(together with the corporations, agencies, and functions transferred
thereto by Executive Order No. 9361 of July 15, 1943), the Office of
Foreign Economic Coordination (except such functions and personnel
thereof as the Director of the Budget shall determine are not concerned
with foreign economic operations) and their respective functions,
powers, and duties are transferred to and consolidated in the Administration.
3. The Administrator may establish such offices, bureaus, or
divisions in the Administration as m a y be necessary to carry out the
provisions of this order, and may assign to them such of the functions
and duties of the offices, agencies, and corporations consolidated by
this order as he may deem desirable in the interest of efficient administration.
4. The powers and functions of the Administration shall be exercised
in conformity with the foreign policy of the United States as defined by
the Secretary of State. As soon as military operations permit, t h e
Administration shall assume responsibility for and control of all
activities of the United States Government in liberated areas with
respect to supplying the requirements of and procuring materials in
such areas.
5. All the personnel, property, records, funds (including all unexpended balances of appropriations, allocations, or other funds now
available), contracts, assets, liabilities, and capital stock (including
shares of stock) of the offices, agencies, and corporations consolidated
by paragraph 2 of this order are transferred to the Administration for
use in connection with the exercise and performance of its functions,
powers, and duties. I n the case of capital stock (including shares of
stock), the transfer shall be to such agency, corporation, office, officer,
or person as the Administrator shall designate. The Administrator
is authorized to employ such personnel as may be necessary in the
performance of the functions of the Administration and in order to
carry out the purposes of this order.
54




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

55

6. No part of any funds appropriated or made available under Public Law 139, approved July 12, 1943, shall hereafter be used directly or
indirectly by the Administrator for the procurement of services,
supplies, or equipment outside the United States except for the purpose
of executing general economic programs or policies, formally approved
by a majority of the War Mobilization Committee in writing filed with
the Secretary of State prior to any such expenditure.
7. All prior Executive Orders insofar as they are in conflict herewith
are amended accordingly. This order shall take effect upon the taking
of office by the Administrator, except that the agencies and offices
consolidated by paragraph 2 hereof shall continue to exercise their
respective functions pending any contrary determination by the
Administrator.
FRANKLIN D . ROOSEVELT.

T H E W H I T E H O U S E , September 25,




1943.

[Executive Order 9380]

APPENDIX

V

EXECUTIVE ORDER RELATING TO FOREIGN FOOD PROCUREMENT AND DEVELOPMENT
By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and
the statutes of the United States, as President of the United States
an<l Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, and in order further
t o unify and consolidate governmental activities relating to foreign
economic affairs, it is hereby ordered as follows:
1. The functions of the War Food Administration and the Commodity Credit Corporation with respect to the procurement and
development of food, food machinery, and other food facilities, in
foreign countries, are transferred to and consolidated in the Foreign
Economic Administration to be administered in accordance with the
provisions of Executive Order No. 9380 of September 25, 1943.
2. The personnel, records, property, funds, contracts, assets, and
liabilities of the Commodity Credit Corporation, determined by the
Director of the Bureau of the Budget to be primarily concerned with
the functions transferred to the Foreign Economic Administration by
this order, shall be transferred, on such date or dates as the Director
of the Bureau of the Budget shall determine, to the Foreign Economic
Administration or to such subdivisions or corporations thereof as the
Administrator of the Foreign Economic Administration shall designate.
3. Except as otherwise provided in this order, the procurement
of food, food machinery, and other food facilities in foreign countries,
by the Foreign Economic Administration, shall be performed consistently with directives issued to such Administration by the War
Food Administrator with respect to food for human or animal consumption and by the War Food Administrator and the Chairman of
the War Production Board jointly with respect to food for industrial
uses. The War Food Administrator, or the War Food Administrator and the Chairman of the War Production Board jointly, as the
case may be, may (1) set forth in such directives the quantities,
specifications, priorities, and times and places of delivery relating to
such procurement, and (2) append to such directives suggestions as
to sources and prices relating to such procurement. The Administrator of the Foreign Economic Administration may from time to
time advise the War Food Administrator, the Chairman of the War
Production Board, and the Director of War Mobilization as to circumstances affecting procurement under such directives and as to
steps which the Administrator of the Foreign Economic Administration deems will promote effective procurement by the Foreign Economic Administration of food, food machinery, and other food
56




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

57

facilities in foreign countries for the purposes of the War Food
Administration or the War Production Board.
4. (a) Nothing in this order shall authorize the War Food Administrator or the Chairman of the War Production Board to issue directives to the Foreign Economic Administration with respect to (1) the
procurement and development of food, food machinery, and other food
facilities in foreign countries for use in foreign countries, and (2) the
preclusive procurement of foreign food, food machinery, and other
food facilities vital to the enemy either for military or civilian needs.
(b) The provisions of this order shall not affect the existing authority of the War Food Administrator or of the War Production
Board with respect to priorities and allocations, or to define general
policies, subject to the authority of the Office of War Mobilization
under paragraph 4 of Executive Order No. 9361 of July 15, 1943, with
respect to the procurement and development of food, food machinery,
and other food facilities in foreign countries for use in foreign countries.
5. As used in this order, (1) the word "food" shall have the meaning
set forth in paragraph 10 of Executive Order No-. 9280 of December 15,
1942, exclusive of sugar produced in the Caribbean area, and (2) the
words "foreign countries" shall be deemed to exclude the Dominion of
Canada.
6. All prior Executive orders and directives insofar as they are in
conflict herewith are amended accordingly. This order shall take
effect immediately except that the War Food Administration and the
Commodity Credit Corporation shall continue to exercise their respective functions transferred under paragraph 1 of this order until such
date or dates as the Administrator of the Foreign Economic Administration shall determine.
F R A N K L I N D. ROOSEVELT.
T H E WHITE HOUSE,




October 6,1948.
[Executive Order 9385]

APPENDIX

VI

EXECUTIVE ORDER RELATING TO SURPLUS WAR
PROPERTY
By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and
Statutes of the United States, particularly the First War Powers Act,
1941, as President of the United States, and as Commander in Chief
of the Army and Navy, it is hereby ordered as follows:
1. There is hereby established in the Office of War Mobilization,
the Surplus War Property Administration (hereinafter referred to as
the "Administration"), the powers arid functions of which, subject
to the general supervision of the Director of War Mobilization, shall
be exercised by a Surplus War Property Administrator (hereinafter
referred to as the "Administrator"), to be appointed by the Director
of War Mobilization.
2. With the assistance of a Surplus War Property Policy Board,
composed of a representative from each of the following: State Department, Treasury Department, War Department, Navy Department,
Justice Department, Reconstruction Finance Corporation, Smaller
War Plants Corporation, United States Maritime Commission, War
Production Board, Bureau of the Budget, War Food Administration,
Federal Works Agency, Civil Aeronautics Board and the Foreign
Economic Administration, it shall be the function of the Administration, to the full extent that such matters are provided for or permitted
b y law:
(A) To have general.supervision and direction of the handling
and disposition of surplus war property.
(B) To have general supervision and direction of the transfer
of any surplus war property in the possession of any Government
agency to any other Government agency whenever in the judgment of the Administration such transfer is appropriate.
(C) Unless otherwise directed by the Director of War Mobilization, to assign, so far as it is deemed feasible by the Administration, surplus war property for disposition, as follows: Consumer goods to the procurement division of the Department of
the Treasury; capital and p r o d u c e d goods, including plants,
equipment, materials, scrap and other industrial property, to a
subsidiary of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, created
pursuant to Section 5D (3) of the Reconstruction Finance Act,
as amended; ships and maritime property to the United States
Maritime Commission; and food to the War Food Administration; provided that surplus war property to be disposed of outside the United States, unless otherwise directed by the Director
of War Mobilization, shall be assigned, so far as it is deemed
feasible by the Administration, to the Foreign Economic
Administration.
58




REPORT OF FOREIGN ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATION

59

3. All functions, powers, and duties relating- to the transfer or
disposition of surplus war property, heretofore conferred by law on
any Government agency may, to the extent necessary to carry out
the provisions of this order, be exercised also by the Administration.
4. The Administrator may prescribe regulations and issue directions necessary to effectuate the purposes of this order; and no
Government agency shall transfer or dispose of surplus war property
in contravention thereof. Each Government agency shall submit
such information and reports with respect to surplus war property
and in such form and at such times as the Administrator shall direct.
When requested by the Administration, a Government agency shall
execute such documents for the transfer of title or for any other
purpose or take such steps asv the Administration shall determine to
be necessary or proper to transfer or dispose of surplus war property
or otherwise to carry out the provisions of this order.
5. The Administrator may perform the functions and exercise the
powers, authority, and discretion conferred on the Administration by
this order by such officials and such agencies and in such manner as
the Administrator, subject to the provisions of this order, may
determine. In carrying out the purposes of this order, the Administration may utilize the services of any other Government agency.
The Administration, within the limit of funds which may be made
available, may employ necessary personnel and make provisions for
supplies, facilities, and services necessary to discharge the responsibilities of the Administration.
6. As used in this order:
(A) "Government agency" means any executive department,
independent establishment, agency, commission, board, bureau,
division, administration, office, service, independent regulatory
commission or board, and any Government-owned or Government-controlled corporation.
(B) "Surplus war property" means any property, real or
personal, including but not limited to plants, facilities, equipment, machines, accessories, parts, assemblies, products, commodities, materials, and supplies in the possession of or controlled
by any Government agency whether new or used, in use or in
storage, which are in excess of the needs of such agency or are
not required for the performance of the duties and functions of
such agency and which are determined, subject to the authority
of the Office of War Mobilization, to be surplus by such agency.
All prior executive orders, insofar as they are in conflict herewith^
are amended accordingly.
FRANKLIN D .

T H E W H I T E H O U S E , February 19, 1944-




[Executive Order 9425]

ROOSEVELT.

APPENDIX VII

FUNDS MADE AVAILABLE BY CONGRESS FOR ACTIVITIES
NOW CONDUCTED BY THE FOREIGN ECONOMIC
ADMINISTRATION
I. Lend-Lease Appropriations to the President.
First Lend-Lease Appropriation
_'_
Second Lend-Lease Appropriation
Third Lend-Lease Appropriation
Fourth Lend-Lease Appropriation
Fifth Lend-Lease Appropriation

$7, 000, 000, 000
5, 985, 000, 000
5, 425, 000, 000
6, 273, 629, 000
3, 538, 869, 000

Total
28,222,498,000
II. Lend-Lease Transfers Authorized From Other Appropriations.
Direct appropriations have been made to the War and Navy Departments and
to the Maritime Commission for the procurement of items which are in the main
common to the uses of our own armed forces and those of our allies. These items
when produced can be used, in other words, by our own armed forces or those of
our allies in the manner in which they can be most effective in defeating our common enemies. It is not until they are ready for distribution that they are allocated by the military experts in accordance with the strategic needs. The Appropriation Acts in question authorize transfers to our allies up to stated amounts
under the Lend-Lease Act. That does not mean that transfers up to the stated
amounts have to or will necessarily be made. All that it means is that there is
sufficient flexibility for the military experts to assign the supplies where they will
do the most good in winning the war.

War Department:
Third Supplemental, 1942
Fourth Supplemental, 1942
Fifth Supplemental, 1942
Sixth Supplemental, 1942
Military Appropriation Act, 1943
Navy Department—Second Supplemental, 1943
Departments other than War—Third Supplemental,
1942
Total

$2, 000, 000, 000
4, 000, 000, 000
11,250,000,000
2, 220, 000, 000
12, 700, 000, 000
3, 000, 000, 000
800, 000, 000
35, 970, 000, 000

NOTE.—In addition to the foregoing, Congress has with certain limitations
authorized the leasing of ships of the Navy and merchant ships constructed with
funds appropriated to the Maritime Commission without any numerical limitation
as to the dollar value or the number of such ships which may be so leased. (See,
for example, Public Law 1, 78th Congress, approved February 19, 1943, and
Public Law 11, 78th Congress, approved March 18, 1943.)

III. United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.
Direct Appropriation
$450,000,000
Transfers authorized of supplies, services or funds from
lend-lease appropriations
350, 000, 000
IV. Administrative Expenses of Foreign Economic Administration.
For Fiscal Year 1944-45
$19,750,000
60