Background

Arthur Hugh Bunker was born on July 29, 1895 in Yonkers, New York, the son of George Raymond Bunker, founder and president of the National Sugar Refining Company, and Jeanie Polhemus Cobb.

Education

Following education at the Taft School and Yale University (from which he graduated in 1916), Bunker served during World War I with the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics.

Career

Bunker then entered the minerals business in Denver, Colorado, as president of the Radium Company of Colorado. The company mined uranium to extract radium for medical uses, a successful enterprise until richer uranium ores were discovered in the Belgian Congo.

He sold his company, United States Vanadium, to Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation in 1927 for a handsome profit. Bunker briefly engaged in developing petroleum in South America and quickly disposed of oil leases for sizable gains.

He then took an option on a New Jersey nursery specializing in orchids and turned it into the world's largest producer of the exotic plant. Just eight days before the crash of 1929, Bunker became executive vice-president of the Lehman Corporation, an investment trust organized by Lehman Brothers, who were Wall Street bankers.

Judging by his later involvements, Bunker remained active in the development of metal ore extraction. During World War II, Bunker joined other major corporation executives who organized and administered war production.

On June 10, 1941, he was appointed to the Office of Production Management as the acting deputy chief of the materials and metals division, becoming chief of the aluminum and magnesium unit in December.

With the creation of the War Production Board (WPB) in 1942, Bunker became director of its aluminum and magnesium division, then vice-chairman for metals and minerals.

As war production and reconversion to peacetime production issues came to a head in June 1944, Bunker's authority was enhanced by his appointment as vice-chairman of the Production Executive Committee and director of its staff, and then as deputy executive vice-chairman of the WPB.

In 1943-1944 a controversy developed that involved liberals who wanted reconversion to commence before the war ended, in order to give civilian production advantages to small business while minimizing worker joblessness, and the military and big businessmen who argued that a delayed reconversion would assure the armed forces of supplies needed to win the war and would discourage workers from abandoning war-related jobs for those in civilian production.

Bunker's rise in the WPB hierarchy was seen as a triumph for the latter group. Bunker did not disappoint his business admirers. The only cutbacks in war production made in mid-1944 were to free labor for more essential production of planes and tires.

In September, Bunker was elevated to WPB chief of staff in a reorganization that practically eliminated liberals. Following his efforts to sustain output of metals through long-term contracts that included government subsidies, Bunker resigned from the WPB on December 19, 1944, and became a general partner in Lehman Brothers in 1945.

Bunker's interest in development of metals persisted, and four years after he joined Lehman Brothers he left for the presidency of Climax Molybdenum Company, the world's largest producer of molybdenum, a metal mostly used to harden and toughen steel and increasingly used in manufacturing jet engines and gas turbines because of its durability at high temperatures. Bunker diversified the company into uranium and oil production.

He died in New York City.

Achievements

• Bunker's major achievement was in developing a new process for extracting vanadium, a metal used to toughen steel and put the snap in springs, from Colorado ores. He played an important role in the vital production of light metals for aircraft. President Harry Truman appointed him a member of the Materials Policy Commission in 1951, the purpose of which was to study long-range national needs for development of metals. Its advocacy of expansion led to Bunker's inclusion on a permanent advisory panel on mineral discovery and development created by the National Science Foundation. His other significant achievement spanned Bunker's interest in development of metals, which led him to presidency of Climax Molybdenum Company, the world's largest producer of molybdenum. Through his professional efforts this company was diversified into uranium and oil production. Afterall, through his ties to Wall Street (he was a director of the Lehman Corporation and several others) and Washington, Bunker appears to have played a significant but unobtrusive role in policy planning for the American political economy following World War II.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Works of Arthur Hugh Clough

    (10 works of Arthur Hugh Clough English poet and education...)

  • The Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough
  • Arthur Hugh Clough: Selected Poems (Fyfield Books)

    (First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylo...)

Views

Like many of the top wartime administrators, Bunker eschewed a production man's perspective for a financier's broader view of the economy.

He used technicians shrewdly, worked long hours, and delayed tough decisions but, once having made them, had them implemented with a firmness that brooked no opposition.

Personality

Tall and spare with silvery hair, Bunker presented the image of a successful engineer-financier.

Quotes from others about the person

• In the words of Donald M. Nelson, chairman of the WPB, Bunker "was more nearly right in his predictions of what was needed, and when it was needed, than anyone else in WPB. Certainly, the fact that the aluminum problem was solved was due in no small degree to Arthur Bunker. "

Connections

Bunker married Antoinette Marie Blache on May 9, 1933. They had three children. On July 31, 1959, he married Isabel Leighton.

Father:

George Raymond Bunker

1845–1927

1st wife:

Antoinette Marie Blache

Sister :

Katherine Bunker Parsons

1899–1980

Daughter :

Daphne Bunker Rhodes

1935–1962

2nd wife:

Isabel Leighton

wife :

Isabel Leighton Bunker

1899–1995

mother :

Jeanie Polhemus Bunker

1861–1942

Brother :

Ellsworth Bunker

1894–1984

References

• Industrial Mobilization for War: History of the War Production Board and Predecessor Agencies. Vol. I. Program & Administration.
• Arsenal of democracy, the story of American war production,