CHEAPER titanium, the wonder metal used in jet engines, is on the way. Monsanto Chemical Co. and Massachusetts' National Research Corp. have developed a speedy new process which bypasses the intermediate step of converting ore into titanium "sponge," instead produces titanium crystals that can be melted directly into ingots. The government is about ready to let a long-term purchase contract, lend a good part of the estimated $60 million needed for a mass production plant.

CONRAD Hilton, who purchased Manhattan's famed Hotel Plaza in 1943 for $7,400,000, will sell it for $15 million to an East Coast group headed by Boston Hotelman A. M. Sonnabend. But Hilton, who hated to give up the profitable hotel but thought "the opportunity too good to resist," will lease the hotel back for $3,750,000 for 2 1/2 years.

HELICOPTERS will soon be used by National Airlines to feed traffic into its Tampa terminal. National has bought one seven-passenger Sikorsky S-55, may buy two more. It thus hopes to have a big head start in operating experience when 30-to-45 passenger helicopters become available.

FORD'S 1954 models will make their debut to dealers in CinemaScope. Ford has bought commercial CinemaScope rights for one year, plans to show the new car films in theatres in their morning off hours.

RCA's Chairman David Sarnoff and President Frank Folsom lost more than a million dollars in paper profits because of a drop in RCA stock. Under a stock option, exercised last February when RCA stock sold at 29, Sarnoff bought 100,000 shares and Folsom bought 50,000 at 17 3/4 as a long-term investment, with money borrowed from the banks. But during the six months they had to hold the stock under SEC regulations, the market price tumbled. Pressed by the banks, they were forced to sell 105,000 shares in all, for a profit of roughly $290,000, taxable at only 26%, compared to the $1,180,000 profit they had on paper last February.

GREYHOUND Corp., which was once forced to get financing from the railroads to build up its bus lines, is buying out its partners to have a freer competitive hand. It plans to pay $22.5 million for the railroads' stock in three of its biggest bus lines, Pacific Greyhound, Pennsylvania Greyhound and Tennessee Coach Co., is also dickering for big Blue Ridge and White Star Lines, whose 142 buses cover 1,130 miles of routes between Cleveland and Washington, D.C.

PEREIRA & Luckman, the West Coast architectural partnership formed by Wonder Boy Charles Luckman after he was relieved of the presidency of Lever Bros., will head a group of architects designing $200 million worth of U.S. air and naval bases in Spain.

PRICE supports on 1954 crops of "nonbasic" grains, e.g., rye, barley, oats and grain sorghums, will be trimmed by Agriculture Secretary Ezra Benson from an average 85% to about 75% of parity. Benson fears that otherwise too many farmers, limited on their wheat and corn plantings, will switch to nonbasic grains, thus create new surplus problems.

NO depression, and "no ifs, ands and no buts," is predicted by Dr. William A. Irwin, economist for the American Bankers Association. Huge accumulated business earnings and private savings provide "the biggest cushion in history against depression." Farm incomes "are in no real danger of collapse; the law requires the Government to see to that, and so does the farmer's vote."

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