PERSONAL FILE

sb Japan's brilliant, courtly central banker, Governor Masamichi Yamagiwa of the Bank of Japan, likes to relax by playing go--a, Japanese war game in which he astounds opponents with his daring, unbankerlike moves. But in recent weeks, torn between the need to cool off Japan's overheated boom (TIME, Sept. 8) and Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda's fear that any belt-tightening would hurt him politically, Yamagiwa, 60, has shown uncharacteristic indecision. Last week he finally hiked Japan's bank rate from 6.935% to 7.3%, the highest of any industrialized nation. Tighter money, Yamagiwa hopes, will discourage the more feverish expansion plans of Japan's industrialists.

sb Eager to break into discount selling, giant Montgomery Ward & Co. made a proposal to gregarious Sol William Cantor, 50, president of the 63-link Interstate Department Stores, whose annual sales rate has climbed from $90 million to $175 million since it entered discounting in 1959. With Wall Street's Lehman Bros, playing marriage broker. Ward's intends to pick up Interstate in a $50 million stock swap. The deal makes eminent sense to Manhattan's Cantor, who gives plenty of local autonomy to managers of Interstate's 42 standard department stores, but holds "a tight rein" on its 21 discount outlets. As an executive vice president of Ward's, Cantor would still run Interstate, but would be able to draw upon Ward's purchasing channels and expansion capital.

sb Seized by the U.S. Government as German property during World War II, General Aniline & Film Corp. (chemicals, dyes, Ansco Film) has handicaps few U.S. corporations can match: its ownership has been the subject of a 13-year legal battle between the Government and a Swiss holding company, and its board changes hands each time the White House does. Result: profits ($7.2 million last year) are way off the chemical industry's pace. To remedy this, Aniline's new, Kennedy-appointed board last week chose as chairman and chief executive officer U.S. Industries Chairman John I Snyder Jr., 52. A strong Democrat and an executive of proven skill, Snyder built the highly diversified U.S. Industries out of Pittsburgh's old Pressed Steel Car Co. Says he: "I don't think Kodak has known that Ansco was around--but it will now." -

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