Howard Hughes climbed into his plane last week and flew down to San Diego, where Atlas Corp.'s Floyd Odium was inspecting Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp., one of Atlas' properties. Hughes was interested in another Atlas Corp. property: RKO. Since the dark days of 1935 when RKO and its chain of theaters were deep in the red, Atlas had gradually bought up 929,020 RKO shares, a controlling (24%) interest. Atlas Corp.'s management, and the war, had put RKO healthily into the black. Now Odium wanted to get out and take his profit.
For an hour Hughes dickered with Odium about buying Atlas'...
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