How to Make a Buck

For building the Government's $350 million Hanford plutonium plant during World War II, Du Pont agreed to a fee of $1. But it took Du Pont a long time to collect. Only last month did the Government pay off (because it took so long to terminate the contract). Last week Du Pont announced that it had signed up with the Atomic Energy Commission to make another dollar, this time by building the hydrogen bomb plant.

In a letter to Du Pont's 122,000 stockholders, President Crawford Greenewalt referred to the new project merely as "new production facilities for atomic materials." In addition to the $1 fee, Du Pont agreed to the same terms as those for Hanford (now operated by General Electric Co.). The Government will pay all costs, including the salaries of Du Pont personnel assigned to the project, and Du Pont will turn over to the U.S. all patents and discoveries arising from the project. The site of the new atomic city has not been selected, but a decision is expected shortly.

President Greenewalt, one of the key men in the Hanford project, flatly said that Du Pont had not wanted to take on the new job. It had done so only "upon assurances from highest governmental sources that the project is of vital importance" to the U.S. The reasons for Du Pont's reluctance were plain. It did not want to risk having the "merchant of death" tag pinned on it again. Nor did it have any desire to hand more ammunition to Fair Deal trustbusters who have filed three suits attempting to break up the Du Pont organization. Last week the New York Times's Pundit Arthur Krock scored the paradoxical Government policy of trying to make Du Pont bigger and smaller at the same time. Wrote he: "When the Government needs skills and organizations to do big jobs, especially in the area of security, it must call upon those which often at the same time it is attempting to disperse by antitrust prosecutions. The instance of the Du Pont company is striking . . . This is the two-policy anomaly of recent Democratic Administrations which steadily attempt to break up the facilities on which they must depend in a crisis."

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