Anglo-American Collaboration
The rapidity with which representatives of this country and the United States are reaching decisions for welding the war efforts into a single whole is one of the outstanding facts in Anglo-American co-operation. Last January boards were set up for pooling munitions and shipping resources and the disposal of raw materials. Now two new boards have been set up, a Combined Production and Resources Board, consisting of Mr. Donald Nelson and Mr. Oliver Lyttelton, to work in collaboration with the Combined Chiefs of Staff ; and a Combined Food Board, consisting of the American Secretary of Agriculture and the head of the British Food Mission in the United States (representing Lord Woolton). The object of the first will be to combine the production of both countries into a single inte- grated programme adjusted to strategic requirements. The second will secure the most advantageous distribution of the food resources not only of Britain and America but all the United Nations. In both cases we have centralised planning and a pooling of the resources and material to which the planning applies. Though the distance from London to Washington is great it is small compared with the vaster distances between the areas which the United Nations have to draw upon or supply. The Washington-London nexus is to hold together and control the intricate problem of strategy, joint production and supply for combatants and civil popu- lations. The unification is becoming more complete than anything known in the last war, and adds greatly to the power of the team. What the joint output already amounts to, and will amount to in the future, can be gathered from the impressive broadcast delivered by Mr. Lyttelton at Washington on Wednesday.
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