![]() Still others wanted civilian, international trade, and economic needs considered. Some parties wanted to eliminate the Buy-American clause others focused on only military requirements. The struggle centered on two broad subjects: the purposes which stockpile policy was to serve and the roles and procedures for making policy, which, in effect, would determine the degree of influence for each of the interested agencies, and the allocation of power between the Executive Branch and Congress (Snyder, 1966). Consideration of this legislation began well before the end of the war and was contentious at times. The first significant post-World War II congressional action pertaining to stockpiling was passage of the Strategic and Critical Materials Stock Piling Act of 1946 (Public Law 520-79). Between 19, 6 materials in the national stockpile inventory were released for military needs, and a seventh material under contract but not yet in the stockpile was redirected, all by Executive Order of the President (War Department and Navy Department, 1947). Of the 15 materials in the stockpile during World War II, only 3 were from domestic sources, while the rest were from foreign sources (War Department and Navy Department, 1947). Major expansions of the domestic supply of materials were financed by the federal government, most notably the supply of aluminum and synthetic rubber. Several federal agencies-including the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the War Production Board, which was formed in January 1942-were responsible for importing these materials, as well as arranging for the building up of government-owned reserves or stockpiles of strategic and critical materials. To support this effort, numerous materials were imported in large quantities-such as ferroalloys, manganese, tin, and natural rubber. All segments of the industry were fully mobilized in a short time to manufacture the goods and products needed to win the war. Throughout World War II, the United States relied mainly on its strong industrial base for processing and manufacturing to meet national defense needs. Unfortunately, the acquisition of these materials was not completed before the beginning of the war, because only $70 million of the $100 million had been appropriated by Congress and only $54 million worth of materials had been acquired. By October 1940, both the Army and Navy Munitions Board and the National Defense Advisory Commission, a Presidential advisory group, had recommended specific quantities of strategic minerals for stockpiling, many of which were the same as on the earlier list. By May 1940, small quantities of certain materials-such as chromite, manganese, rubber, and tin-were procured under the Strategic Materials Act. The list was based on the threatened loss of vital imports as a consequence of Japanese conquests in Asia and the possibility of war in Europe (Snyder, 1966). The Army and Navy Munitions Board had developed a list of 42 strategic and critical materials needed for wartime production. But today’s NDS had its beginning with the passage of the 1939 Strategic Materials Act, which authorized $100 million for the Secretaries of War and the Navy acting jointly with the Secretary of the Interior and in conjunction with the Army and Navy Munitions Board to purchase strategic raw materials for a stockpile. The first activity to develop an inventory of strategic and critical materials for military use was authorized in the Naval Appropriations Act of 1938, which also provided funds to buy strategic items. The pre-World War II list of important materials was divided into two groups: 14 strategic materials essential to the national defense the supply of which in war must be based entirely or in substantial part on sources outside the United States and 15 critical materials essential to the national defense procurement of which in war would be less difficult (for example, more readily available domestically) than the strategic materials. ![]() ![]() ![]() In 1922 the Army and Navy Munitions Board was established in the War Department to plan for industrial mobilization and procurement of munitions and supplies. The many supply shortages of strategic materials encountered in World War I caused the War Industries Board to recommend that future materials problems should be anticipated and ameliorating actions taken. Deficient in certain minerals of great importance, particularly in war time … The remedy may mean … the accumulation of a reserve supply, either by government or private companies.
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