Mr. Eichelberger Gets Mad

Frank Eichelberger, chubby-cheeked president of Kalunite, Inc., had got the run-around from OPM for months on his plans to make aluminum from alunite (TIME, June 16). Last week, testifying at a Senate Defense Committee hearing in Seattle, he had a chance to crack back. He snapped at it like an angry smallmouth:

Eichelberger: The gloves are off on this thing. I'm a careful man, but I'm mad now, Senators.

Chairman Truman: We want to take the gloves off. This committee has been trying to get aluminum ever since last April.

Eichelberger: Okay. I'm mad and here we go.

Then Eichelberger told a story that made members of the committee mad too. His alunite process has been approved by the Bureau of Mines and OPM's own technical staff, has been used successfully in Japan. But 0PM, which has persistently favored the process used by Aluminum Co. of America, cold-shouldered Eichelberger from the start.

After the Senate Committee criticised OPM last May for the nation's aluminum shortage, OPM did finally name Kalunite's parent company (Olin Corp.) to operate a Government-owned plant. But OPM did not specify whether alunite ore could be used, hemmed & hawed over location of the plant. Eichelberger wanted to build on tidewater at Tacoma, use Bonneville Dam power. He called on Clifton H. Chadwick, an OPM consulting engineer, to suggest this plan. His description of the meeting: "I was treated with all the courtesy of a cross-eyed stepchild." Later Chadwick visited the site, ruled that it was unsuitable, suggested another location "15 miles out in the woods" where construction and transportation costs would be multiplied.

Details of Chadwick's inspection were supplied by Frank Walsh of the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce:

Walsh: [Chadwick] was accompanied by T. D. Jollie, chief engineer for Alcoa. . . . They drove by twice, but nobody got out and looked over the site. Later Chadwick called and said that Jollie declared it would not do.

Senator Mead: So in reality . . . Jollie had the veto power.

Eichelberger: It's just another thing to slow this up. We could have been producing two months ago.

Senator Mead: You're saying that OPM is trying to force an unfavorable site on you to force you out of the picture?

Eichelberger: Yes, sir, exactly.

Senator Truman: . . . This has all the earmarks of a maneuver by OPM to turn over full control of the aluminum industry to Alcoa.

This week Engineer Jollie said he had indeed looked at the Kalunite site with Engineer Chadwick. Reason: OPM had asked Alcoa to build the plant for Olin. Mr. Jollie vetoed Mr. Eichelberger's site because it was on tidal land.

Mr. Eichelberger insisted that the site was fine for alunite-aluminum production, was not feasible if bauxite-aluminum production (whose carbon furnaces require deep pits) was planned. The fact that Alcoa was to build his plant was news to him. If OPM was not giving him the runaround, it was certainly giving him the silent treatment.

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