 Red gold: Copper and the U.S. mobilization campaign, 1950–3Glenn J. Dorn Economic History Review, 2025, vol. 78, issue 3, 933-951 Abstract: This paper examines U.S. planners’ persistent efforts to secure an adequate supply of a vital metal, copper, during the Korean War, and the numerous obstacles that plagued them. Their initial efforts to mobilize without imposing a disruptive, draconian control scheme quickly proved inadequate, all but forcing planners to adopt a much more regimented Controlled Materials Plan (CMP). The inability of U.S. planners to secure a strong supranational control regime through the International Materials Conference undercut efforts to coordinate international mineral allocation, exacerbated U.S. shortages, and spawned ill‐conceived compromises that eroded the effectiveness of the CMP. Finally, Truman's domestic opponents, never entirely reconciled to a rigid control regime, used the copper shortage to further weaken mobilization planning. In the end, the preparedness campaign, despite some remarkable successes, failed to achieve many of its goals due, in part, to a global copper shortage that Senator Burnet Maybank's Joint Committee on Defense Production called ‘perhaps the most serious material limiting factor on fulfillment of defense goals’. Date: 2025 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:78:y:2025:i:3:p:933-951 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Economic History Review is currently edited by Stephen Broadberry More articles in Economic History Review from Economic History Society Contact information at EDIRC. |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.