Kiss & Make Up

The Aluminum Co. of America and the Surplus Property Administration have been tossing brickbats at one another for months. But last week they started throwing posies.

SPA's weightiest brickbat had been the charge that Alcoa had blocked the disposal of surplus Government aluminum plants. Alcoa had refused, said SPAdministrator W. Stuart Symington, to license its patents on its process of converting low-grade bauxite into alumina (which is in turn smelted down to aluminum). This had blocked SPA's deal to lease the Hurricane Creek plant (which operates on low-grade bauxite) and Jones Mills aluminum plant to the Reynolds Metals Co. (TIME, Dec. 31). Alcoa's frail, grey-haired vice president, I. W. Wilson, had indignantly denied the charges. He did not stop there.

In Washington he sat down with Symington and held a joint press conference. Alcoa, they announced, had decided to give the use of its patents covering extraction of alumina from bauxite to the Federal Government. It can license operators of Government-owned plants to compete with Alcoa. In an atmosphere perfumed with sweet reasonableness, Wilson told why Alcoa had done it. Said he: "Mr. Symington is a very fine salesman."

Graciously, Symington added: "If we're throwing posies, I would say Mr. Wilson has done a very fine thing. ... I take back as many of [my earlier statements] as Mr. Wilson thinks I should. If he thinks all, I take them all back."

Alcoa got no immediate return for its generosity. But if the move creates enough competition for Alcoa, it may, paradoxically, be repaid, by saving itself from being broken up as a monopoly.

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