Alright, this is gonna be a Great Man story. 2 in fact: William Knudsen who left presidency of GM to head up office of production management, OPM under Roosevelt (funny how the OPM hacked by Chinese was “Personnel”), and Henry Kaiser, construction cartel boss turned shipbuilder
“Their foes weren’t German or Japanese soldiers but Washington politicians and bureaucrats, shrill journalists, military martinets, the denizens of Big Labor as well as Big Government — and sometimes the forces of blind date.”
Ok, it’s clear what sort of book this will be 😀
Now learning about the Nye committee which investigated WW1 production machine in the run-up to WW2. So that’s where the phrase “merchants of death” comes from.
Damn the neutrality/non-engagement decades were really anti-military: “From the 4th biggest military force in the world in 1918, the US Army shrank to number 18, just ahead of tiny Holland”