text: After Pearl Harbor, the United States was effectively cut off from its supply of natural rubber and a large scale synthetic rubber production process needed to be invented and commercialized. Rafferty led Union Carbide's efforts in producing butadiene which would then be polymerized in a synthetic rubber production process.
  The Baruch Committee in 1941 had reported to President Roosevelt: "Of all critical and strategic materials, rubber is the one which presents the greatest threat to the safety of our nation and the success of the Allied cause. If we fail to secure a large new rubber supply quickly, our war effort and domestic economy will collapse."
  William M. Jeffers, leader of Union Pacific Railroad and first Rubber Director for the War Production Board, had this to say of Rafferty:[https://nyti.ms/3Q714AM Bradley Dewey], co-founder of the Dewey & Almy Chemical Company and the second Rubber Director for the War Production Board, said of Rafferty: