14 August 2003

The Great War

WASHINGTON-It was sixty-eight year ago on a day just like this on the banks of the Potomac- muggy, oppressive- that Japan unconditionally surrendered an empire taken by force and which they held for three years and 250 days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

It had been three days since the incineration of Nagasaki. Washington waited in the humidity, sweating into their collective shirts and blouses. Far away there was an abortive coup attempt by the die-hard faction of the Japanese military and a scratchy nasal address by the Living God on the radio to his subjects, almost all of whom had never heard the Emperor speak.

President Truman called a special press conference in the West Wing of the White House at 7 P.M. He handed out three separate papers with major policy decisions. The first was the only one he read aloud. He said he had received a Japanese note. It was determined that the contents were in full compliance with the Potsdam Declaration of the Big Three. It was the complete and unconditional surrender of the Nation of the Sun. The President said it was acceptable, and that the Japanese surrender to the Supreme Allied Commander would be made at the earliest opportunity. There was a small alternation to Potsdam. Truman allowed an understanding that the Japanese might keep their Emperor, if they chose to do so, but the heir of the dynasty founded by Jimmu Tennu would henceforth work for the Allied Commander-in-Chief in Tokyo.

Hostilities were over.

He didn't read the other two policy announcements, but they were sweeping as well. They were more relevant to the day-to-day lives of the American people, or at least the young men. He decreed the Selective Service would slash the monthly military draft from 80,000 to 50,000 men, to provide a constant flow of replacements for the occupation forces. He also hoped to 5,000,000 to 5,500,000 men in the subsequent year (or eighteen months) would return home, transportation and events permitting. In order to accommodate the flow of discharged troops, the War Manpower Commission was directed in the third paper to immediately abolish all controls on the labor force. For the first time in three years there was a free labor market. People were free to change jobs, or quit, or even stay home without being accused of malingering. The commission also was directed to help displaced workers and veterans find jobs.

Before he walked outside to wave at the crowds form the fountain, the President decreed holidays for all Federal workers, who the New York Times quoted him as lauding as the "hardest working and perhaps the least appreciated" by the public of all who had helped to wage the war. Before the Navy civilians took the holiday, they canceled nearly six billion dollars in prime contracts for ships and war materiel.

The Federal Government that remained after the end of Hostilities was something the like of which America had never seen. There were new Offices and Bureaus all over town. Every square inch of office space was jammed. Read David Brinkley's fine book "Washington Goes to War" to get a feeling for how the war made this sleepy soggy town change into something combining the efficiency of the South with the traditional courtesy and charm of the North.

Which is to say it was a piece of work. Though hostilities were over in the Pacific, mopping up operations continued in what suddenly had become the capital of the Free World. There were isolated incidents between the great gray buildings along Independence Ave, where the Departments and Bureaus of the Executive Branch march stolidly toward the imposing dome of the Congress on its lofty hill. The Department of Agriculture anchors the Avenue down toward the Tidal Basin. The original building is elegant white marble, square and well-proportioned. Then it grew. And grew. A huge sandstone block was added across the street, and then a heroic marble walkway was thrown across the pavement to join the Department and protect the Federal workers from the elements. "Ag," as it is called, ruled supreme from the capital on the matter of things grown and raised on the farm, and also oversees some of its importation and processing. But not all of it, in fact, not even half.

Further up the street toward Capitol Hill lies another independent Administration, the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has tentacles that spread through the fabric of our society. To give you an idea of the scope of his authority, today there was an announcement that the Administrator had approved the design of a four-wheel drive wheelchair. An all-terrain vehicle for the disabled. Tobacco, which would seem to be an agricultural issue, is, in the minds of some, actually a drug. Which would put its jurisdiction squarely in the FDA. You can imagine fisticuffs between regulators out in the tobacco barns of North Carolina. FDA has its roots in the Pure Food and Drug Act, passed by Congress when it was alerted to the nature of the adulterants in what the nation devoured, and what exactly was in the patent medicines of the changing last century.

I can only dimly limn the titanic struggle between these two entities. Where did the regulation of cows and slaughterhouses divide them? When does a side of beef become pastrami? Is it when cooked? What about steak tartar? Where was the line between other living things as crops and food? An eerie guerilla war continued in the capital. Hard-eyed bureaucrats fired rounds of memos at one another, ambushes were conducted and prisoners taken. Soon the interagency landscape was littered with the combat wreckage of failed policies. Advances were made, positions overcome. The Deputies Committee, beleaguered but undaunted in the sweltering heat, took shelter and dug in for the long haul, generating sheafs of strategic points papers as the institutional equivalent of weapons of mass destruction. Soon there were no trees standing in the pulp forests of South Georgia.

The situation could not go on. The attrition was awful in the humidity. Then it came. Détente.

There was a meeting in an oppressively hot conference room, the air still. Central air conditioning did not exist. Sweat rolled down starched shirts. Was starch subject to regulation? It was not food but it was in contact with human flesh. Had a study been done? Ties wilted. Implacable interests finally were laid on the table with the working lunch. The issues had to be brought to heel. Administrators of good will had to find a way to divide the authorities they had under the law. Peace had to be achieved by whatever means necessary. The cost of continued fighting could amount to the two week vacation on the shore.

"Well," said the Secretary of Agriculture's man to the Administrator of Food and Drug. "Where do we draw the line?"

The Administrator looked down at the remains of the working lunch, the waxed paper and apples and soda bottles on the conference table. "No one gets out of here until it is decided."

The moment hung, pregnant. One of the men began to play with an uneaten piece of bologna on a piece of bread. He thought about it. The bologna was processed food, that was clear, and the limp American cheese was processed, and the wheat that had gone to make the Wonderbread on which it sat was processed. But it was all meat and dairy. The limp lettuce and the apple were natural, or rather, semi-natural preserved wax sealant and Alar. An idea began to dawn. Perhaps compromise was possible. Suddenly, peace was at hand.

"O.K." said the bureaucrat boldly. "You guys have jurisdiction over the closed-face sandwiches, and everything to the right of that on the food chain, and we retain jurisdiction over open-faced sandwiches and everything to the left."

"Done."

The meeting was over, and the tired bureaucrats left the stifling building, got into their pre-war cars and drove out toward the DelMarVa shore where their families waited the awful months when no one could bear the heat of the city.

The war was over. The division of authority was perfectly logical, if you thought it through really hard.

Everyone knows how it turned out, a decision so fundamental that it affects nearly everything the nation digests. It impacts you, personally, every day.

And if you think I am kidding, you need to go read the seal of which Department is on which of your groceries.