Major Operation

In 1924 International Paper Co. lured brilliant, voluble Archibald Robertson Graustein out of a Boston law firm, made him president, gave him free rein. Mr. Graustein proceeded to take the bit in his teeth. International was huge when he got it. Archie Graustein made it colossal, chiefly by adding power properties. Before he got through, International Paper & Power Co. was an $800,000,000 empire stretching from Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico.

Archie Graustein, however, was no paper man. And three years ago, after both International and the industry had begun to recover from their doleful declines in the early 1930s, he was invited to resign as president of International Paper, but to remain president of International Paper & Power (top holding company for all the subsidiaries). Mr. Graustein resigned from both in a huff and went back to lawyering. Richard J. Cullen, who had been in the paper business since he was 22, got his jobs.

Touched with hypochondria, Mr. Cullen refers to bothersome unfinished business as a "stone in my belly." A stone in Mr. Cullen's belly since he became International's head man has been the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, requiring geographical integration of utility pyramids. Like many another utility magnate, Mr. Cullen tried to evade this "death sentence" without avail. SEC remained adamant and the stone in Mr. Cullen's belly still hurt. Last week he had it cut out.

After six months of dickering between I. P. & P. and SEC, both parties agreed to a plan under which the $800,000,000 empire's $583,000,000 in utility properties would be transferred to a liquidating trust. After a projected reorganization, I. P. & P. will still have assets of $250,000,000, will still be the world's biggest paper company--as it was before it ever heard of Archibald Graustein.

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