ARMAMENT: From Rubber to Atoms

During World War II, Akron’s Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. got plenty of experience operating Government-owned plants. Among them: three synthetic rubber plants, two of which it still runs, and a big aircraft factory which turned out 4,000 Navy Corsair fighters. Last week Goodyear got its biggest Government job: running the Atomic Energy Commission’s $1.2 billion uranium-235 plant in Pike County, Ohio (TIME, Aug. 25). Though Goodyear had no experience with atomic energy, AEC figured that it did know a lot about the continuous-flow operations used in atomic energy plants, could learn the rest. When the huge, gaseous diffusion plant is completed about four years from now, Goodyear will employ only 4,000 to keep it running, will be paid a cost-plus fixed fee for the job. Meanwhile, Union Carbide & Carbon, which runs AEC’s Oak Ridge and Paducah uranium plants, will teach Goodyear the ropes.