Steel's Maverick

THE best one-word description of Henry J. Kaiser, 77, and his son Edgar Fosburgh Kaiser, 51, is the title of the TV program sponsored by their $1.8 billion industrial empire: Maverick. Before he moved upstairs to let his son take over, bulldozing Henry J. built a worldwide network of diversified companies with an independence and daring that alternately drew gasps, laughter, and profanity from U.S. industry. Last week Son Edgar once more proved that the Kaisers are mavericks: he settled with the striking United Steelworkers on behalf of his Kaiser Steel Corp., thus breaking the industry's solid ranks.

When he joined the industry's bargaining team for the first time this year, energetic, voluble Edgar Kaiser insisted that he be free to talk with union leaders on his own. While other steel heads refused to meet personally with the union, Kaiser bargained diligently. He called his settlement "noninflationary." To Edgar Kaiser the time seemed at hand to stop talking and get back to work. Says he: "We do not believe it's right to put people back to work under a court injunction. When you force things upon human beings, you simply make more trouble for yourself in the long run. We think a showdown with labor, an attempt to turn the clock back, will merely result in more Government control."

EDGAR KAISER'S decisive move to settle with the Steelworkers reflects a lifetime career of troubleshooting. Father Henry J. worked out the broad ideas that built the Kaiser empire, stubbornly pushed them, in the face of ridicule and skepticism. Behind him, putting the ideas to work, came Edgar and a group of University of California college friends, including Eugene E. Trefethen Jr., new vice chairman of several Kaiser companies, and D. A. ("Dusty") Rhoades, new president of Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. When Henry J. won a contract to build the main spillway dam at Bonneville, Ore. in the mid '30s, he turned the job over to Edgar, then 25, and Clay Bedford, a boyhood chum, who is now general manager of Kaiser Aircraft & Electronics. Swift currents and widely varying water levels made the job a tough problem--but the dam was finished a year ahead of schedule.

When Kaiser went into shipbuilding in World War II, Edgar took over half the operation, Trefethen the other half. Despite skepticism from every quarter, the Kaiser shipyards went on to build more vessels than any other shipbuilder during the war. At the same time, the Kaisers also had their first run-in with the steel industry, when they announced plans to build their Fontana steelworks on the West Coast with an RFC loan. Despite the industry's opposition, Kaiser built the largest steel plant west of the Mississippi (in ingot tonnage), paid off the Government loan 20 years ahead of time.

KAISER moved into automaking, and Edgar again got a big job--running Kaiser-Frazer. But the auto industry proved too tough to crack. K.-F. lost about $52 million before it stopped making passenger cars. Edgar cut the loss by buying up the assets of Jeep-maker Willys-Overland, now Willys Motors, which last year contributed $6,848,000 in earnings to Kaiser Industries. In 1954 he moved West to take charge of the Kaiser empire, and Henry J. headed for Hawaii to build a new empire there, including his latest enthusiasm: a $350 million resort-residential city on East Oahu.

Trim (5 ft. 11 in., 180 lbs.) and broad-shouldered, Edgar keeps himself in shape for long hours on the job. He spends a quarter of his time hopping from country to country, divides the rest between offices in Oakland and Manhattan. His 12-ft. blond-wood desk in Oakland is equipped with 20 intercoms and 17 phone lines that can reach his network of 91 plants and facilities in seconds. Henry J. still keeps in touch from Hawaii, often calls up sleeping Edgar at 4:30 a.m. and chortles: "Oh, did I wake you?"

As in business, Edgar Kaiser does not let his private life get into a mold. He wears rakish Tyrolean hats, likes to drive at high speeds, operate his motor boat in the roughest seas, set off powerful firecrackers (one of which ruptured his eardrum). He often buys clothes for his wife, personally outfitted the entire wedding party of one of his three daughters, all married (he also has three sons, Edgar Jr., 17, Henry, 15, and Kim, 11, in Eastern prep schools). Whether Edgar and his wife are ensconced in their six-bedroom, Spanish-style home in Lafayette, Calif, or speeding around the world, being with him, says Mrs. Kaiser, is "living with mayhem--and enjoying it."

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