PEDAL TO THE METAL

n June 25, 1942, barely six months after the Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Donald M. Nelson traveled to Capitol Hill to appear before the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. Nelson, who for most of his adult life had been an executive of Sears, Roebuck & Company but now, by order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was the chairman of the War Production Board, laid