Government Service
Clayton entered government service in World War I as a member of the Cotton Distribution Committee of the War Industries Board. Although he was a Democrat, he opposed the New Deal agricultural policies of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but the New Deal's free trade policies led him to support Roosevelt in the 1936 election.
In 1940, Clayton returned to government service in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, then moved to the Export-Import Bank, where he worked to procure strategic materials for the United States and to deny them to Nazi Germany. After a series of administrative shuffles, Clayton found himself working under Vice-President Henry A. Wallace. Disagreements between them led Clayton to resign in January 1944, only to return to government service a month later as Surplus War Property Administrator under James F. Byrnes in the Office of War Mobilization.
At the end of 1944, Clayton was named the first Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, a post that allowed him to promote the free trade policies that he believed in. He was a member of the Interim Committee appointed to advise Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and President Harry S. Truman on problems expected to arise from the development of the atomic bomb and he was an economic advisor to Truman at the Potsdam Conference.
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