Time Clock

LOWER TARIFFS are in prospect for a list of some 1,000 imported items (value $2 billion) in 1956. Under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the U.S. will put up nearly one-fifth of its imports (everything from golf balls to autos) for trade bargaining with 25 nations in Geneva this January. Though not all duties will be cut, prospects are that many items will be cut 15% over the next three years.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST fight is stirring up anew over businessmen who serve in the Government without pay. Trustbuster Stanley Barnes is not satisfied with the compromise worked out last summer, whereby a businessman can run a key division but make no policy decisions (TIME, July 18) ; Barnes will attack the idea, especially in the Commerce Department, recommend that Secretary Sinclair Weeks either use businessmen strictly as advisers or replace them with salaried division chiefs.

FLOOD DAMAGE in the Northeast from hurricanes Connie and Diane will hit $157 million, according to the Business & Defense Services Administration, instead of the original $2 billion estimate, and the actual cost to businessmen will be a lot less. Reason: unpublicized gestures by a large segment of U.S. business to replace or repair flood-ruined merchandise free of charge or at big discounts. Among the firms helping out: drugmakers Eli Lilly, McKesson & Robbins, Bristol-Myers, Johnson & Johnson, food processors Birds-Eye, National Biscuit Co., Pepsi-Cola, cameramakers Eastman Kodak, Agfa, Bell & Howell.

FLOYD ODLUM is nearing agreement with Howard Hughes on a deal to merge his Atlas Corp. with Hughes's RKO Pictures Corp., the parent holding company that Hughes retained after selling off its moviemaking subsidiary, RKO Radio Pictures. Under the deal, Odium will issue one share of Atlas stock for each 5% shares of RKO. In return, he will get no plants or production, but some important assets: $15 million worth of U.S. Government bonds and a $30 million capital-loss tax carryover, which Odium can apply against profits in other ventures.

RED TRADE EMBARGO by Japan will soon be relaxed, if Japanese businessmen have their way. Japan's Chamber of Commerce has formally petitioned the government to permit freer export to Communist China of such items as freighters, locomotives, steel, machine tools.

LOUIS WOLFSON, who lost his proxy battle for Montgomery Ward & Co. (TIME, May 2), is still buying stock in the company. Wolfson says that "things are looking up" under the new management, reports that he has bought another 12,000 shares to bring his holdings to 59,000 shares.

FLYING TIGER LINE, back in the black after 18 months of red ink (net income for fiscal 1955: $400,188), will order ten Lockheed Super Constellations (capacity: 18 tons of freight) for its runs across the U.S. and overseas. Order is the biggest ever placed for a nonmilitary cargo fleet.

BIG TANKER PROGRAMS will be kicked off by Royal Dutch-Shell and Esso Petroleum, but U.S. shipbuilders will not share in any of the orders. Oil companies will spend up to $230 million on 40 new tankers (34 for Shell, six for Esso), ranging from 18,000 tons to 36,000 tons, for delivery by 1960. The British will build 22, the Dutch 14, the Germans four.

ATOMIC PLANE will get a big boost from a new test reactor to be built by the Government at Sandusky, Ohio at a cost of $4,500,000. The nuclear reactor will not be a prototype plane engine, but will be used to supply data to General Electric, United Aircraft and Curtiss-Wright, which are working on an atomic engine, Boeing and General Dynamics, which are working on the plane to carry it.

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