HOWARD HUGHES is near agreement with Thomas O'Neil, president of General Tire's subsidiary, General Teleradio, Inc., on a deal for RKO pictures. O'Neil will pay $22 million ($13 million cash) for RKO's picture-making facilities plus its library of 700 films, use both movies and the studio in his TV business.

BOEING JET TRANSPORT will soon be in production for U.S. airlines. With an Air Force green light to build the airliner alongside its jet tanker, Boeing is dickering with both Pan American (for 25 planes) and United Air Lines (for 20 planes), expects to deliver the first jet by late 1958 at a price somewhere between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000.

FIRST ATOMIC POWER for U.S. commercial use will be sold by the AEC to New York's Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. Power will come from the AEC's land-based experimental submarine reactor at West Milton, N.Y., will drive a 10,000-kw. generator, supplying enough electricity to STVC a city of 20,000. Cost to Mohawk: 3 mills per kwh, about the same, as paper mills and shoe companies, which have small hydroelectric plants, charge local utilities for their excess power.

NEW SUPERLINER will be built by the French Line to replace its aging Ile de France and Liberte. The $77 million ship will gross 53,000 tons, carry 2,007 passengers. First sailing: 1960.

FAIR-TRADE BATTLE is splitting state supreme courts. In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, courts last week ruled in favor of fair trade (on cases involving General Electric and Bulova Watch Co.), thus making six (others: California, New Jersey, New York, Delaware) that have upheld the constitutionality of the 1952 McGuire Act. Five other state supreme courts (Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nebraska), plus some lower courts, have ruled against fair trade.

EAST COAST GAS WARS are forcing bie producers to chop prices to retailers. With some Manhattan service stations selling gas as low as 15.8-c- per gal., Socony Mobil, Esso Standard Oil and others have cut wholesale prices up to 1/2-c- per gal. in most of the seaboard marketing area from Maine to Washington, D.C., the first price reduction in nearly a year.

VOLKSWAGEN, which will turn out its 1,000,000th postwar car next month, is going into the middle-class market with a new de luxe model. Instead of the familiar, beetlelike lines, Volkswagen's Ghia Coupe car will have low, sporty lines, look something like Italy's swank ($3,500 and up) Alfa Romeo. Price: $1,785 in Germany.

APPLIANCE MERGER will join three big firms into a single company with assets of $130 million. Under the deal, Whirlpool Corp. (home laundry equipment), Seeger Refrigerator Co. (freezers, etc.), and RCA's air-conditioning and appliance departments (stoves and air conditioners) will merge into a new firm to be called Whirlpool-Seeger Corp. (Sears, Roebuck & Co. owns a big stock interest in both Whirlpool and Seeger, currently markets many of their products.)

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