"Linear programming was a new branch of applied mathematics that – in the USA – came into being as a direct consequence of mathematicians’ war work. It was not done under contract with the AMP but by some of the mathematicians employed directly by the armed forces.15 The source was a concrete practical problem within the US Air Forces,16 a logistic problem that eventually led to the mathematical theory of linear programming, and from there to mathematical programming. The person normally associated with the origin of linear programming in the USA is George B. Dantzig. Dantzig was one of the mathematicians hired directly by the armed forces for the war effort. In 1941 he began working at the Combat Analysis Branch of the United States Air Force Headquarters Statistical Control under the leadership of Tex Thornstons. During the war Dantzig worked on what was called “programming planning” methods to calculate Air Force programs. An Air Force program was a kind of activity plan."