Check from the Ford Motor Company IPO payable to The Ford Foundation for $642,600,000, dated January 26, 1956.
relationship with Sidney Weinberg dated
back to World War II when he, Weinberg
and Brownlee all served on the War Pro-
duction Board (WPB). Chaired by Donald
Nelson, who was then the vice president
and chairman of the executive committee
of Sears, Roebuck & Co., the WPB (1942–
45) was created by President Franklin D.
Roosevelt to coordinate war production
activities across government agencies.
Weinberg, Goldman Sachs’s senior
partner who had campaigned for FDR
in 1932 and 1936, was appointed to the
WPB in 1942. His job was to find mem-
bers of private industry for the board.
Born in the Red Hook neighborhood of
Brooklyn, New York, Weinberg was the
son of a wholesale liquor dealer. One of
11 children, he had limited formal educa-
tion and started working at a young age.
In 1907 he got a job with Goldman Sachs,
where partner Paul Sachs became a men-
tor to him and encouraged him to study,
even paying for Weinberg to take classes
at New York University. After serving in
World War I, Weinberg returned to the
firm and worked in the Bond Department.
He made partner in 1927 and senior part-
ner in 1930.
Weinberg was well-known for his abil-
ity to build relationships. President Roos-
evelt, whom Weinberg had known since
Roosevelt was Governor of New York,
dubbed him “The Politician.” According
to William D. Cohan, author of Money
and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to
Rule the World, General Electric’s Charles
Wilson joined the WPB after Weinberg
put the “heat” on him from behind the
scenes to leave GE and move to Washing-
ton. Weinberg and Wilson became close
friends, and their association continued
well after World War II.
In 1945, Weinberg joined the board of
directors of General Electric, no small
feat given that GE was a long-time cli-
ent of the Morgan banks [J.P. Morgan &
Co. (f. 1895) and later Morgan Stanley &
Co. (f. 1935)]. During the Korean War,
when President Harry Truman appointed
Wilson to head up the Office of Defense
Mobilization, Weinberg served as Wil-
son’s chief assistant.
Charles Wilson was not the only con-
tact with the Ford Foundation and family
that Weinberg made during his wartime
service. The WPB also had an Automotive
Branch, which was headed by Ernest Kan-
zler (1892–1967), Henry Ford II’s uncle
and adviser, who had been the production
director of the Ford Motor Company.
Kanzler was married to Henry Ford II’s
mother’s sister. He became director gen-
eral of the WPB in 1943. During the war,
the WPB coordinated with the Automo-
tive Council for War Production (ACWP,
1940–1945), a volunteer industry group
that organized war production for the
automobile industry. Its original board
included Henry Ford II’s father, Edsel.
After Edsel died in 1943, Henry Ford II
joined the board of the Automotive Coun-
cil in May 1944, succeeding Charles Soren-
son, vice president of the Ford Motor
Company, who had taken Edsel’s place.
Henry Ford II does not appear to have
14 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Fall 2017 | www.MoAF.org
ever been a member of the WPB, as many
sources suggest. Between 1941 and 1943,
he was serving in the US Navy, and he
left only when his father died, apparently
with some strings being pulled by his
uncle. According to William Cohan, as
well as Judith Ramsey Ehrlich and Barry
J. Rehfeld, co-authors of The New Crowd:
The Changing of the Jewish Guard on Wall
Street, Ford II and Weinberg met in Janu-
ary 1947 when Ford II “became a member
of the Business Advisory Council (BAC)
of the US Department of Commerce.”
Weinberg had helped to create the BAC
in 1933 after, he said, “President Roosevelt
complained he had no contact with busi-
ness.” (It met several times a year with the
Commerce Secretary). Like Wilson, Ford
II became close friends with Weinberg,
and by the time the Ford Foundation and
family were negotiating over the stock
sale, Ford II tapped him to act as the fam-
ily’s adviser.
Even though Weinberg’s friend was
acting as the primary negotiator for the
Foundation’s board of trustees, and even
though he had long-standing relationships
with the primary players on both sides,
the deal was not an easy one. Weinberg
submitted more than 50 reorganization
plans before finding an acceptable solu-
tion to both parties. The final agreement
between the family and the foundation
determined “the family [would] give up
their exclusive right to vote in the affairs
of management, and [would] transfer 60%
of the voting rights to a new Common
Stock.” The deal created three types of