Somervell and Styer decided to strengthen the Army's control of the project, with a single officer placed in charge. The obvious candidate was Styer, but Somervell did not want to lose his chief of staff, so Colonel Leslie R. Groves Jr. (who was promoted to brigadier general) was appointed. Groves reported to the Military Policy Committee, which consisted of Styer, Rear Admiral William R. Purnell and Vannevar Bush, the head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). At the Quebec Conference in May 1943, it was decided to merge the British Tube Alloys project with the Manhattan Project. Styer then became the chairman of the Combined Policy Committee, which included British and Canadian representatives. He also headed its Technical Subcommittee. The size and scope of activities of the ASF was so great that it was able to hide a project that cost nearly $2 billion (equivalent to $ billion in ), built major industrial complexes, and at its peak employed 80,000 people. Abolished On 30 August 1945, Marshall created a board head by Lieutenant General Alexander M. Patch to review the organization of the War Department. The board had no officers from the ASF staff but two came from the technical services. The board submitted its recommendations to the Chief of Staff on 18 October. These were that the technical services be continued, with the Transportation Corps made permanent, and that the Finance Department becoming an eighth technical service. There would be six administrative services: the Adjutant General's Department, the Judge Advocate General's Department, the Corps of Chaplains, the Office of the Provost Marshal General, and the Special Services Division. Their activities would be supervised by a Director of Personnel and Administration in the WDGS. The service commands would be abolished, and their functions transferred to the Armies. The ASF would also be abolished, and its staff sections transferred to the WDGS. Eisenhower succeeded Marshall as Chief of Staff on 19 November 1945, and Somervell's retirement was announced on 26 December, effective 30 April 1946. He was succeeded as commnder of ASF by Lutes on 1 January 1946. On 13 May 1946, President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9722, which amended Executive Order 9082, and gave the Secretary of War thirty days "to reassign to such agencies and officers of the War Department as he may deem appropriate the functions, duties, and powers heretofore assigned to the