Business: Richfield & Sinclair

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Last month when the motion of a Sinclair triumph was pervading the final hearings on the plan, Harry Sinclair made one of his stage gestures. In court rose his attorney, onetime Secretary of War Patrick Jay Hurley, to say that since some of the creditors appeared to think that Mr. Sinclair wanted to dominate the new company, Mr. Sinclair was willing to withdraw from rehabilitated Richfield's board of directors. Expostulating gently, the re-organization committee hastened to assure Mr. Hurley that it very much wanted Mr. Sinclair on the board. Other board members will be President F. R. Coates and Vice President W. Alton ("Pete") Jones of Cities Service, President H. R. Gallagher of Consolidated Oil, President Charles S. Jones of Rio Grande Oil, Richfield's longtime Receiver McDuffie and representatives of banking and creditor interests, including Cinemagnate Joseph Michael Schenck.

The final gesture was also Harry Sinclair's. When Judge James last week found it beyond his lawful power to grant Richfield's reorganization committee more than $160,000 of its $381,000 five-year expense account, Attorney Hurley rose again, announced that Rio Grande Oil would gladly put up the difference.