Bulldozer at Work

When Robert H. Hinckley, onetime $50,000-a-year executive at Sperry Corp., moved in as boss of the troublesome Office of Contract Settlement, he faced a mountain: the settlement of billions in canceled war contracts. This week, OCS Boss Hinckley reported he was well on his way to bulldozing it into a molehill.

For the year ending June 30, said Hinckley, 56,721 contracts, involving almost $16 billion, have been settled. Now, fewer than 1,300 canceled contracts have been tied up more than six months in final settlement.

More important, Hinckley's settlements, which ran at the rate of $1 billion a month last December, have been stepped up to $1.5 billion a month, will soon reach $2 to $2.5 billion.

Surprisingly, OCS found that few manufacturers were so short of funds that they needed advance payments to tide them over reconversion. Nearly 90% of all firms whose contracts were canceled had ample funds of their own, or could borrow from local sources.

Despite the smooth clicking of his settlement mill, Bob Hinckley expects to speed up OCS still more. If Japan quits soon the rate will have to reach $4 billion a month; if V-J day does not come for a year, only $3 billion. Both of these settlement goals are so close in sight that Bob Hinckley considers the hardest part of his job done.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.