"The seven years from 1940 through 1946 were difficult. Although 1939 had been a grand year for the Museum, World War II had broken out before the first exhibition in the new building came to an end in September. During this ‘phony’ war in Europe, the American ‘Defense Effort’ got under way. Two years later Pearl Harbor changed the term to ‘War Effort.’ In connection with World War II, the Museum executed thirty-eight contracts (valued at over $1,500,000) for various governmental agencies, including the Office of War Information, the Library of Congress, and the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs; nineteen exhibitions were sent abroad and twenty-nine were shown in the museum, all related to the war; in addition, the manifold Armed Service Program was carried on. A dozen members of the curatorial staff joined various services. With its own program handicapped and diverted, the Museum faced a challenge...to keep to its fundamental purpose, to maintain its standards, its integrity, its faith in the value of the arts of peace now that we too are at war’ (from the Annual Report published at the end of 1941). Many changes occurred: Nelson A. Rockefeller was called to Washington in 1940 and resigned as President early in 1941 when he became the Government’s Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs; John Hay Whitney was then elected President but soon left to enter the Air Force; Stephen C. Clark, Chairman of the Board, took the arduous obligations of President, as well."