Buck Rogers, Inc.

When millions of Americans watched the world's first network telecast of an atomic explosion, two months ago, the feat was made possible by a microwave apparatus, which relayed the image from Yucca Flat, Nev. to a transmitting station on the top of Mount Wilson 140 miles away. This week, when the new superliner United States spreads its cuisine before notables on its maiden voyage, the steaks will be cooked on a Radarange, which does the job electronically in half a minute. On the big ship's bridge are two Fathometers to sound the ocean's depth, and a Mariners Pathfinder, whose radar eyes will spot icebergs or approaching vessels through fog or darkness.

All these electronic wonders are the product of Boston's Raytheon Manufacturing Co., a kind of Buck Rogers, Inc. A prewar pygmy whose sales never topped $5,000,000, Raytheon grew into a giant during World War II, when it made more than half of all the search radar used by the Allies, and its sales hit a peak of $178 million. (Its stock had an even more fantastic rise, shot from 50-c- in 1940 to a high of $90 in 1945.) But at war's end, Raytheon ran into the red as its sales tumbled to around $60 million in 1947.

Sparks & Fission. The company seemed near disaster when Charles Francis Adams Jr.,* a director who was just out of the Navy as a destroyer commander, moved in as head of a rescue committee. Says Adams: "None of the other directors wanted the job because they'd lose their reputations if we went under. I, having no reputation to lose, said sure, this is a challenging situation." Adams, a Harvardman ('32) and investment banker, got Raytheon into fighting trim, soon stepped on to the bridge as executive vice president. Four years ago Laurence K. Marshall, who had founded the company in 1922 with the help of M.I.T.'s famed Scientist Vannevar Bush, retired as president, and Adams took over. Through Belmont Radio Corp., a Chicago subsidiary acquired at war's end, he had already put Raytheon heavily into television, turned out 100,000 sets before Korea cut back production and made Raytheon a war baby again.

Test Ahead. Now Raytheon has a rearmament backlog of $180 million, much of it for the continental radar defense screen against Soviet A-bombers, and anti-submarine sonar for the Navy. Among its other products:

P: The Microtherm, a machine which uses radar waves to apply heat to sprains, sore muscles, infected sinuses, etc. Hospitals have pronounced it far more efficient than the pre-radar heat machines, so far have bought 10,000 (at $645 to $750).

P: A "reflection plotter" for the Navy, which enables navigators to keep track on a screen of all nearby vessels.

P: Transistors, the tiny devices which can do the work of electronic tubes, use far less energy, and last indefinitely. Raytheon thinks transistors may eventually replace TV and radio tubes.

P: The "QK245 tube," which permits the "storing" of a television picture for as long as a week, will then replay it.

Despite its rearmament backlog, Raytheon is not neglecting its civilian market, including commercial radar. It recently built the world's biggest antenna for the harbor of Le Havre, France. Last week, with long-sluggish TV sales picking up once more, President Adams flew out to Chicago to show off Belmont's newest "Vu-Matic" television models. The "Vu" stands for very high frequency and ultra-high frequency. Raytheon claims its new tuners will be able to cover the whole radio spectrum.

But some of Raytheon's promising other products, such as the Radarange, are still too expensive or not yet ready for mass production. Raytheon, which has never paid a dividend, hopes to have them ready to cash in on when its arms orders are filled. "Our biggest test," says President Adams, "will come in 1954, when the rearmament crest is passed."

* Son of Boston's No. 1 citizen, Charles Francis Adams; grandnephew of Henry Adams; great-great-great-grandson of President John Adams.

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