The Smart Operator

In their continuing study of the new-style American business success--the fellow who has a fat Government contract in his hand and a tax lawyer at his elbow --a House subcommittee last week got an advanced lesson from a Chicago truck dealer named Morris Green. He told how to buy surplus property under one set of rules, get the rules changed, then sell the goods for a $425,000 profit.

Morris Green, a confident fellow with stubby hands, an expensive suit and a sharp tie, was disarmingly frank. First, in 1947, he and his four partners put around $200,000 on the line for surplus Army trucks, which had been given free to the Philippine government. Next came the problem of paying off the helpers.

The late Joseph Freeman, onetime Washington business agent indicted in the Garsson-May munitions scandal but later acquitted, demanded $100,000 for steering Green to the right people. Freeman never did a thing, said Green, but after he died, the truck dealer softheartedly thought of Freeman's widow and infant and settled out of court for $42,000.

Then came the really tough part: under the rules, such surplus equipment could be brought back to the U.S. under bond for repair, but could not legally be resold in the States. To get the Department of

Commerce to lift its ban on domestic sales, Green paid at least $95,000 to a Cleveland law firm. What, if anything, the lawyers did, Green didn't know; but they saw to it that his plight was explained to the proper officials. It seemed to be enough; the ban was lifted and the partners got around to reselling their hundreds of trucks.

Their best customer turned out to be the U.S. Government. The Atomic Energy Commission alone bought 358 of them. For this one transaction, Green paid a $125,000 agent's fee.

According to Green, he and his partners had done nothing outside the law. He was shocked when North Carolina's mild-mannered Congressman Herbert Bonner pointed out a flaw in Green's operations: he had failed to pay a 5% excise tax in his multimillion-dollar operation. The Philippine deal "stinks," said Bonner. It may not be illegal, he added, but it is "morally terrible ... We are in this one to stay for a while."

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