FDR's Budgeteer and Manager-in-Chief: Harold D. Smith, 1939-1945 - Paperbackby Mordecai Lee (Author) In this book, Mordecai Lee provides a long overdue examination of a key member of FDR's administration. Harold D. Smith was FDR's budget director from 1939 through to Roosevelt's death in 1945. In that capacity, he was also the de facto manager in chief of the federal government. During his tenure, he reformed and expanded the Bureau of the Budget (now Office of Management and Budget) into an elite cadre of apolitical experts