ARGENTINA: A Pair of Deals

Tempted by Juan Peron’s new friendliness, two major U.S. businessmen tested the waters of Argentine investment last week and seemed quite ready and willing to wade in.

Atlas Corp.’s Floyd Odlum was in Buenos Aires for the second time. On his first trip, in June, he had proposed only to produce crude oil at Neuquen, 600 miles southwest of Buenos Aires and to build a pipeline to get it out (TIME, June 14). Peron approved, but nationalistic politicians and army officers raised the old cry of foreign exploitation. Odium countered by dressing up his deal with a plan that combines the oil project, an investment company that would put the blocked pesos of U.S. companies to work and—most glitteringly—atomic energy. Under this proposal, he would get uranium mining concessions and would use a part of the profits to build atomic power plants selling electricity at low rates.

Almost as ingenious was an idea from Industrialist Henry Kaiser. At Cordoba, 400 miles northwest of Buenos Aires, he looked over the state-owned plant that produces cars, tractors, motorcycles, jet planes, light planes, gliders, parachutes, trucks and plastic boats. Kaiser’s offer was to put $25 million into an assembly line for the state plant and to supply the know-how for building Kaiser and Willys cars. Until the factory could supply the market, Kaiser proposed to export his U.S.-made cars to Argentina. Perón signed an “agreement in principle” for the deal and was so charmed by the industrialist and his youngish second wife that he gave Mrs. Kaiser a new Mercedes-Benz when they departed.