Business: Opening the Throttle

The Defense Department, which has been speeding up on the letting of contracts, last week opened the throttle wider. Among the awards:

¶The Navy signed a $100 million contract to procure the F8U-3, an advanced all-weather jet fighter, from Chance Vought Aircraft Co., Dallas.

¶The Army signed a $51.8 million contract with Chrysler Corp., Detroit, covering $21.8 million in continuing procurement of the 200-mile-range Redstone missiles and $30 million for finishing the tooling up and ground support for the longer-range (1,500-mile) Jupiter missile.

¶The Atomic Energy Commission extended through September 1960 its 1953 contract with United Aircraft Corp. to work on nuclear reactors suitable for aircraft propulsion.

Washington's new attitude on contract-letting represented a decided turnabout from spending in the early part of this fiscal year. When the Administration set a Defense Department budget of $38 billion for fiscal 1958, the Pentagon was already running far above its spending ceiling, and the Budget Bureau held down defense authorization for new contracts for the first four months of the fiscal year to only $8.4 billion. Then, reassured that the Pentagon's spending rate was under control, the bureau relaxed, released another $10 billion in November and December. Contracts for the rest of the fiscal year should average well above those of the first half.