Tennessee Valley Authority

The Tennessee Valley Authority was a large public-development organization whose record, as presented in the book, included dams, lakes, forests, new industries, new farming methods, and electricity for some 700,000 users. During the Second World War, it also supplied power to the giant uranium plants at Oak Ridge. The account uses this range of work to establish the Authority as a conspicuous institutional success—and to show how closely its reputation was associated with the leadership of David E. Lilienthal.

Development and Public Works

The Authority’s achievements extended beyond electricity generation. Its dams created lakes; its work encompassed forests, industry, and farming methods. The evidence does not detail individual projects or explain how particular programs were administered, but it stresses the scale and variety of the results, describing the Tennessee Valley Authority as a major success.

That record had a wartime dimension as well. The Authority’s electricity helped fuel the uranium plants at Oak Ridge, linking a regional development organization to the nation’s wartime industrial effort. The connection gave its work significance beyond the communities receiving power, while the account offers no further operational detail about the plants or the Authority’s role in supplying them.

Lilienthal’s Leadership and Transition

David E. Lilienthal was regarded as a model New Dealer, and the book credits him with having made the Tennessee Valley Authority. Harry S. Truman reappointed him to lead it. In October, Lilienthal resigned from the Authority to become Truman’s designated, though not yet confirmed, head of the new Atomic Energy Commission. Truman insisted that the commission be under civilian control, making the appointment a consequential move into a new field of public responsibility rather than a continuation of Lilienthal’s work at the Authority.

Lilienthal initially felt inadequately qualified for the atomic-energy post and spent days weighing the decision. Truman’s patience and powers of persuasion helped him accept. His departure thus marks a transition in leadership: the account presents the Authority as an established success, while its former head was being asked to take on a role of exceptional national importance.

Political Scrutiny

Lilienthal’s nomination brought the Tennessee Valley Authority into a contentious Senate hearing. Senator Kenneth McKellar called it a hotbed of Communism and treated Lilienthal as suspect. McKellar also believed that Leslie Groves had discovered the secret of splitting the atom and questioned why Groves should not remain in command of that discovery. The passage records these as McKellar’s accusations and beliefs, not as findings about the Authority.

The hearing connected the Authority’s public reputation to a broader dispute over who should direct atomic energy. Its record of large-scale public works and wartime contribution stood alongside charges of political subversion and arguments for military control. In this episode, the Tennessee Valley Authority mattered both as an organization with a substantial development record and as the institution whose leader became central to the emerging debate over civilian authority in atomic affairs.