 | This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia.(September 2023) |
In the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Foreign Economic Administration (FEA) was formed on September 25, 1943 to relieve friction between US agencies operating abroad. [1]
The FEA was organized and run by Leo Crowley who was described by his biographer Stuart L. Weiss [2] as "The Nation's #1 Pinch-hitter". Weiss summed up Crowley's management style this way: "Based on his own success in Washington, he had concluded that sound administration meant clearly demarcating lines of authority between agencies and, within each, finding the right staff and giving it only the most basic guidance and coordination". [2] : 162
Weiss' evidence for Crowley's hand in creating the FEA is a memo he sent to James Byrnes on September 21, 1943, giving his "assessment of the conflict and confusion among the economic agencies operating abroad." His lengthy memorandum argued that "the major culprit was the State Department, which interfered with (or micromanaged) the execution of policy when it should only formulate and coordinate it. That led to problems in the field, ranging from wasteful duplication or the more critical problems of needless delays and confusion". [2] : 162
Weiss explains: "The British … were complaining of difficulty in dealing with 'conflicting jurisdictions' in North Africa; and the New York Times was emphasizing 'uncertainty regarding the representative spheres of OEW (Office of Economic Warfare), Lend-Lease, and OFRRO (Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations) … friction between OEW and the War Food Administration as regards foreign food purchases". [2] : 161
According to the New York Times, September 26, 1943, on the occasion of the establishment of the FEA, Roosevelt said that [Crowley is] "one of the best administrators in or out of government, [whom] I find great satisfaction in promoting … to a position which will centralize all foreign economic operations in one operating agency". [2] : 163
When the war was over, Harry Truman closed down the FEA. As he explained in his Memoirs, "When the FEA had been formed in 1943 as a wartime agency, the move involved a merger of all or parts of forty-three different agencies. The functions and services with which it had been charged were such that it could not be stopped suddenly. ... I issued an Executive Order on September 27 terminating the FEA ... not later than December 31, 1945". [3] : 477
In 2007 Martin Lorenz-Meyer published a book [4] that investigated one of FEA's public programs. Naturally the author sketches the career of administrator Leo Crowley (p. 22,25,26) and his organization of the FEA:
In 1955 Harry Truman recounted in detail in his Memoirs an early incident in the breakdown in the alliance with Russia after the war:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known by his initials FDR, was an American politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. The longest serving U.S. president, he is the only president to have served more than two terms. His initial two terms were centered on combating the Great Depression, while his third and fourth saw him shift his focus to America's involvement in World War II.
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) was an independent agency of the United States federal government that served as a lender of last resort to US banks and businesses. Established in 1932 by the Hoover administration to restore public confidence in the economy and banking to their pre-Depression levels, the RFC provided financial support to state and local governments, recapitalized banks to prevent bank failures and stimulate lending, and made loans to railroads, mortgage associations, and other large businesses.
Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States, was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, France, Republic of China, and other Allied nations of the Second World War with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and 1945. The aid was given free of charge on the basis that such help was essential for the defense of the United States.
Henry Agard Wallace was an American politician, journalist, farmer, and businessman who served as the 33rd vice president of the United States, from 1941 to 1945, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He served as the 11th U.S. secretary of agriculture and the 10th U.S. secretary of commerce. He was the nominee of the new Progressive Party in the 1948 presidential election.
Harold Lloyd "Harry" Hopkins was an American statesman, public administrator, and presidential advisor. A trusted deputy to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hopkins directed New Deal relief programs before serving as the eighth United States secretary of commerce from 1938 to 1940 and as Roosevelt's chief foreign policy advisor and liaison to Allied leaders during World War II. During his career, Hopkins supervised the New York Temporary Emergency Relief Administration, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civil Works Administration, and the Works Progress Administration, which he built into the largest employer in the United States. He later oversaw the $50 billion Lend-Lease program of military aid to the Allies and, as Roosevelt's personal envoy, played a pivotal role in shaping the alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom.
Henry Morgenthau Jr. was the United States Secretary of the Treasury during most of the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He played a major role in designing and financing the New Deal. After 1937, while still in charge of the Treasury, he played the central role in financing United States participation in World War II. He also played an increasingly major role in shaping foreign policy, especially with respect to Lend-Lease, support for China, helping Jewish refugees, and proposing measures to deindustrialise Germany.
Edward Reilly Stettinius Jr. was an American businessman who served as United States Secretary of State under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman from 1944 to 1945, and as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in 1946.
The United States maintained its Constitutional Republic government structure throughout World War II. Certain expediencies were taken within the existing structure of the Federal government, such as conscription and other violations of civil liberties, including the internment and later dispersal of Japanese-Americans. Still, elections were held as scheduled in 1944.
The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II. The OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other forms of media, the OWI was the connection between the battlefront and civilian communities. The office also established several overseas branches, which launched a large-scale information and propaganda campaign abroad. From 1942 to 1945, the OWI revised or discarded any film scripts reviewed by them that portrayed the United States in a negative light, including anti-war material.
The Office of Administrator of Export Control was established in the United States by Presidential Proclamation 2413, July 2, 1940, to administer export licensing provisions of the act of July 2, 1940. Brigadier General Russell Lamont Maxwell, United States Army, headed up this military entity. It was abolished by Presidential Executive Order 8900, September 15, 1941, and its functions were transferred to the Economic Defense Board, which had been established by Presidential Executive Order 8839, July 30, 1941, to develop policies and programs to strengthen U.S. international economic relations. The name was changed to Board of Economic Warfare by Presidential Executive Order 8982, December 17, 1941. In turn, it was abolished by Executive Order 9361, July 15, 1943, and the functions were transferred to the newly created Office of Economic Warfare, OEM, which also assumed control of U.S. Commercial Company, Rubber Development Corporation, Petroleum Reserves Corporation, and Export-Import Bank of Washington from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Consolidated into the Foreign Economic Administration, 1943.
Roger Wellington Tubby was the seventh White House Press Secretary from 1952 to 1953 and served under President Harry Truman. From 1945 to 1948, he served as the spokesperson of the United States Department of State.
The Federal Real Estate Board was a United States federal agency established in 1921 within the Treasury Department to manage federal properties, with its purpose being to reduce expenses by coordinating the use of real estate across federal agencies. It was active in the Harding and Coolidge administrations.
Leo Thomas Crowley was a senior administrator for President Franklin D. Roosevelt as the head of the Foreign Economic Administration. Previously he had served as Alien Property Custodian and as chief of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Late in the 1930s, senior Washington officials discovered that Crowley had embezzled from his banks in Wisconsin in the 1920s and early 1930s. This information was suppressed twice because of Crowley's political and administrative usefulness. Biographer Stuart Weiss wrote that Crowley's story is:
The Federal Works Agency (FWA) was an independent agency of the federal government of the United States which administered a number of public construction, building maintenance, and public works relief functions and laws from 1939 to 1949. Along with the Federal Security Agency and Federal Loan Agency, it was one of three catch-all agencies of the federal government pursuant to reorganization plans authorized by the Reorganization Act of 1939, the first major, planned reorganization of the executive branch of the government of the United States since 1787.
The Surplus Property Board (SPB) was briefly responsible for disposing of $90 billion of surplus war property held by the United States government in the final year of World War II. Created by the Surplus Property Act of 1944, the Board functioned for less than nine months, before being replaced by a more streamlined agency.
The War Food Administration was a United States government agency that existed from 1943 to 1945. The War Food Administration was responsible for the production and distribution of food to meet war and essential civilian needs during World War II. It was a predecessor of the Farm Service Agency.
The presidency of Harry S. Truman began on April 12, 1945, when Harry S. Truman became the 33rd president upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and ended on January 20, 1953.
The UK-US relations in World War II comprised an extensive and highly complex relationships, in terms of diplomacy, military action, financing, and supplies. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt formed close personal ties, that operated apart from their respective diplomatic and military organizations.
The third presidential term of Franklin D. Roosevelt began on January 20, 1941, when he was once again inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States, and the fourth term of his presidency ended with his death on April 12, 1945. Roosevelt won a third term by defeating Republican nominee Wendell Willkie in the 1940 United States presidential election. He remains the only president to serve for more than two terms. Unlike his first two terms, Roosevelt's third and fourth terms were dominated by foreign policy concerns, as the United States became involved in World War II in December 1941.
The foreign policy of the United States was controlled personally by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first and second and third and fourth terms as the president of the United States from 1933 to 1945. He depended heavily on Henry Morgenthau Jr., Sumner Welles, and Harry Hopkins. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Cordell Hull handled routine matters. Roosevelt was an internationalist, while powerful members of Congress favored more isolationist solutions in order to keep the U.S. out of European wars. There was considerable tension before the Attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The attack converted the isolationists or made them irrelevant. The US began aid to the Soviet Union after Germany invaded it in June 1941. After the US declared war in December 1941, key decisions were made at the highest level by Roosevelt, Britain's Winston Churchill and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin, along with their top aides. After 1938 Washington's policy was to help China in its war against Japan, including cutting off money and oil to Japan. While isolationism was powerful regarding Europe, American public and elite opinion strongly opposed Japan.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
