Overseas Consultants Inc.

Overseas Consultants Inc. was formed by the merger of eleven top U.S. engineering and management firms in the 1940s. In one of its first major undertakings, the company conducted a six month industrial reparations survey of post-World War II Japan in 1947. It ultimately prepared a report for General Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur's general view, however, was that Japan had already paid a heavy price, in that the war had totally shattered the Japanese economy, and Japan had lost all of the territories it had occupied in Manchuria, Korea, North China and the outer islands. (740.00119 Control (Japan)/3-2548, Report by the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Kennan), March 25, 1948).

The company also did work in underdeveloped countries. In the late 1940s, many poor countries desired to raise their standard of living by increasing output of food, natural resources and manufactured goods. Iran, for example, made a noteworthy start toward this end by engaging Overseas Consultants Inc. to advise on a proposed US$650,000,000 development program. (TIME Magazine, Oct. 24, 1949). The company conducted a detailed study that ultimately resulted in a multi-volume report. Today, the report provides invaluable historical insight into the economic development of Iran as of the late 1940s. Unfortunately, implementation of the plan fizzled because the impoverished Iranian government lacked sufficient funds. Foreign aid donors - during, in part, the brief rule of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq - did not provide money for implementation. (TIME Magazine, Jun. 4, 1951).

Overseas Consultants also worked in such remote places as the southern highlands of Central Africa, studying vegetation and soils with respect to possible railroad construction. (Report of Central African Rail Link-Development Survey 1 and 2, Overseas Consultants Inc. and Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners, London, Colonial Office, 1952.)