"Perhaps the biggest deal of its kind in Hawaii history," marveled the Honolulu Advertiser, and all across the island state, where land is scarce and precious, businessmen echoed the Advertiser's wonder.
Popping up out of nowhere, a mysterious "global combine" proposed to buy five Sheraton Corp. hotels on Waikiki Beach and 5,400 acres of choice land on Oahu owned by shrewd Chinn Ho, 58, most meteoric of Hawaii's new millionaires (TIME, May 5, 1961). Total price on the package deal (including a few odd lots from other landholders): $62 million.
Inevitably, there...