MANAGEMENT: The Battle for Ward's

In his 23 years as the highhanded boss of Montgomery Ward & Co., tough old Sewell Lee Avery has been in plenty of fights for control of the company, and has never lost a battle. In the process out have gone five presidents, 32 vice presidents and countless other top employees. But last week the toughest opponent of all stepped into the ring against Avery. The new challenger: Louis Elwood Wolfson, 42, one of the fastest-moving corporation jugglers of the postwar decade.

In a Manhattan hotel suite Wolfson called a press conference to issue...