UNITED STATES PLANS QUICK MOBILISATION OF INDUSTRY IN CASE OF WAR

Grey River Argus, 7 May 1948, Page 5

UNITED STATES PLANS QUICK MOBILISATION OF INDUSTRY IN CASE OF WAR

(Received May 6, at 9.50 pan.) WASHINGTON, May 5. The United States Secretary of State, General Marshall, said to-day that the State Department was considering asking Congress for authority to ship military supplies to Western Europe. He declined to discuss the details at a public hearing before the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. He was asked by Representative James Fulton to comment on reports that the State Department soon .would ask Congress for a limited military lend-lease programme. The U.S.A. Defence Secretary, Mr. James Forrestal, said to-day that the Munitions Board has earmarked 309 war plants for a “national industrial reserve,” as a preparedness move. These plants had been built by the Government during the war. They would be used to produce weapons, quickly in the event of an emergency. He said: “Another one hundred plants may be added to the list as the result of studies that now are being made.”

Mr. Forrestal, in a letter to the House of Representatives Armed Services Sub-committee on Mobilisation, said: “A plan for industrial mobilisation, which can be put into effect efficiently, and on short notice, is fully as important as the maintenance of a powerful military force.” Mr. Forrestal endorsed a pending Bill to allow the Federal Works Agency to maintain some reserve war plants in stand-by conditions, ready for use.