World War II expanded the American executive branch

Averell Harriman's Lend-Lease administration made him Beaverbrook's American counterpart, while Churchill also brought a substantial supporting staff from the Cabinet Office. Britain had administered the First World War from beginning to end and now had to manage another conflict across several fronts. The comparison here is that America's shorter participation in the earlier war had allowed more reliance on temporary arrangements. World War II required a much larger executive staff to handle information and make routine decisions in the president's name. In this assessment, wartime expansion exceeded the New Deal's agency growth. Roosevelt's involvement in choosing conference food illustrates the administrative problem: with few staff below him, even a minor decision could reach the president.