G.M. Preview

General Motors' white-thatched President Charles Erwin Wilson gave the House Committee on Postwar Planning a preview of huge G.M.'s huge plans for the future. The news: if all U.S. businessmen plan things the G.M. way, postwar production will be 50% higher than the prewar peak and almost as big--in terms of employment--as it is now. Wilson highlights:

P: G.M. will need ten more plants as part of a postwar expansion program involving a total investment of $500,000,000 (it had 102 plants, worth $850 million, before the war). And "if the Government has some that are suitable, we will be willing to buy them."

P: In all its plants, G.M. plans to employ some 400,000 people v. its 1939 peak of 201,000. (It now employs 465,000 men & women.) G.M. distributors should further employ some 200,000 people v. 135,000-150,000 prewar.

P: The auto industry will sop up much more steel in producing cars than in war goods. G.M., and "C.E.," consumes only 75,000 tons a month today v. 250,000 in peacetime, even though its $4-billion-plus rate of annual production is more than twice its prewar peak.

But what hardboiled, fact-minded C.E. was really after, he said, was permission 1) to buy some reconversion tools; 2) to engage in small-scale reconversion experiments right away. In the long run, he said, G.M. will need some 45,000 new tools, but it could start the ball rolling with a mere 3,500.

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