FOREIGN TRADE: Backfire

For weeks the U.S. has turned up the heat on the giant Swedish ball-bearing trust, SKF, trying to make it stop exports to Germany. Last week the heat backfired. In Philadelphia, where SKF's U.S. subsidiary has three plants, production of bearings—now a No. 1 shortage in the

U.S. — slumped drastically. The reason: SKF employes, confused by all the niff-naw, thought that the bearings they were making were going to Germany.

Hastily, WPB Vice Chairman Bill Batt, who is also president of the U.S. subsidiary SKF Industries, Inc., flew to Philadelphia. Flanked by...