CONGLOMERATES: Litton's Sad Litany

Only half a year ago, Roy Ash, president of California's Litton Industries, sounded like a man who had seen light at the end of a tunnel. Profits of the troubled conglomerate in 1972, he confidently predicted, would increase substantially over their lackluster showing of $50 million in 1971, and one reason for the gain would be Litton's $ 130 million shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss. Ash calls the ultramodern facility, opened about two years ago, "a national asset that will make U.S. shipbuilding competitive in world markets."

In the months since then, Litton's light...

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