The coal pay dispute and the increasingly untenable position of the administration's wage and price control program led Putnam to resign as ESA administrator on November 6, 1952. Truman named DiSalle his successor until Eisenhower named a permanent replacement or Congress failed to renew the Defense Production Act. During his last months in office, Putnam continually defended the wage and price control program as necessary for the national welfare while conceding that neither Congress nor the next president (whether Truman or Eisenhower) would be likely to retain it.