No Worries?

When U.S. industry mobilizes for war production, the antitrust laws are among the first casualties. Reason: industrywide production allocations and patent pools, which are taboo in peacetime, are essential for the close integration of industries needed for big-scale war production. Last week came the first sign that antitrust prosecutions would again be eased up--or perhaps shelved completely--as they were during World War II. Lanky, eager Herbert Bergson, 44, the U.S.'s most vigorous trustbuster since the early New Deal days of Thurman Arnold, resigned his job.

In two years as head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, Bergson had filed 135 suits, including those against Aluminum Co. of America, E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. and the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (TIME, Sept. 26 et seq.). He has won 80 of his cases, lost only seven. The rest, including the big ones, are still pending. But lately there have been hints that Bergson would have less & less to do. One hint: When the Government decided to build the hydrogen bomb, it handed the big job to Du Pont. Washington no longer seemed to be worried that Du Pont, which the trustbusters had said was too big, would have to grow much bigger to build the bomb.

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