Truman Committee
The Truman Committee proved to be one of the most successful investigative efforts ever mounted by the U.S. government: an initial budget of $15,000 was expanded over three years to $360,000 to save an estimated $10–15 billion in military spending and thousands of lives of U.S.
[10] Truman heard about needless waste and profiteering from the construction of Fort Leonard Wood in his home state of Missouri, and he was determined to see for himself what was going on.
[6][12][13] On February 10, 1941, Truman spoke to the Senate about the problems he had seen on his long drive, and he put forward the idea to have a special oversight committee on military contracts.
Roosevelt and his New Deal advisers had pushed for a majority of New Dealers as committee members, but Republican Party opposition and Truman's own energy prevented that.
The committee was instead formed of a bipartisan group of Democrats and Republicans, pragmatic men who Truman selected for their honesty, practicality, and steady work ethic.
Others on the Committee included chief counsel Hugh Fulton, attorneys Rudolph Halley and Herbert N. Maletz, and staff member Bill Boyle from the Kansas City, Missouri, political machine.
He knew that an investigation of waste and inefficiency in military housing projects would save a great deal of money and also would serve as good publicity for the committee.
"[24][25] Unlike in other congressional hearings, witnesses were generally treated with respect by the Truman Committee and were neither rushed nor subjected to insulting or accusatory language.
In January 1941, he ordered into being the Office of Production Management (OPM), headed by labor leader Sidney Hillman and business executive William S. Knudsen, an inefficient dual-leadership arrangement that suited Roosevelt's wish to prevent a challenge to his leadership.
[27] In July 1941, he formed another government department, the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board (SPAB), led by businessman Donald M. Nelson.
Patterson said that supplying the Truman Committee "all the information it desires" would "impair" the government's ability to respond quickly to the needs of war.
[7] The committee had begun in August 1941 to assess Roosevelt's ungainly Office of Production Management (OPM), and by January 1942, the conclusion was ready for publication.
"[29] The dual leadership chain of command and the divided loyalties of Hillman and Knudsen were described as causing friction and wasted effort.
[16] The Committee generally followed a pattern of sifting through the great quantity of received mail and other messages from whistleblowers to determine the largest problems facing the US military war effort.
Senator/investigator teams would travel to various US cities to visit factories, construction sites, military bases and war production plants where they would talk with managers and workers.
H. G. Robinson, an investigator, found that although the project had built 700 houses, they were poorly constructed, and "A good wind would rip the tar paper roofs off and the cellars have been condemned by the board of health."
The issue carried an associated article, titled "Billion-Dollar Watchdog," describing the Committee "as one of the most useful Government agencies of World War II" and "the closest thing yet to a domestic high command.
"[37] The article raised Truman's importance in the eye of the man on the street, cementing his well-earned position as one of America's most responsible leaders.
[38] In March 1944, Truman attempted to probe the expensive Manhattan Project but was persuaded by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to abandon the investigation.
[39]: 634 In August 1944, to focus on campaigning for the vice-presidency, Truman stepped down as chair of the investigative committee, and Fulton resigned as chief counsel.
Truman's broad experience with industrial, economic, and military issues gained by three years of investigative work with the Committee served to make him one of the most well-informed men in US government and gave him a reputation for fair dealing.
In January 2005, in the face of an additional $80–100 billion requested by President George W. Bush to increase the Iraq War, columnist Arianna Huffington recommended the passing of the resolution sponsored by Senators Larry Craig and Dick Durbin to create a bipartisan oversight committee "modeled on the one Harry Truman created during WW II to root out war profiteering.
"[46][49] The next month, Huffington said that "it's a good time to open a history book" to learn about how a Truman-style committee might be used to counter the Iraq War's US-based problems with "waste, fraud, ineptitude, cronyism, secret no-bid contracts, and profiteering cloaked in patriotism.
"[50] Huffington's endorsement came three months after a press release by Taxpayers for Common Sense, titled "Bring Back the Truman Committee," in which Truman's record of stopping war profiteering in the 1940s was said to be "the most famous and the most successful" example, a model needed as a corrective measure to stem US military contractor improprieties in the War on Terror.
[51] The problem was still not solved by 2007 when Senator Charles Schumer wrote, "The lesson of the Truman Committee is sorely in need of learning today.
"[46] He described how Republican Representatives blocked "for more than a year" a bipartisan proposal for an investigative committee to look into military "scandals and abuses" in Iraq.
