MY YEARS WITH GENERAL MOTORS

General Motors: ""over one million shareholders, some 600,000 employees, $9.2 billion in assets, and $14.6 billion in sales, and $1.46 billion in profits in 1962"". This can be the notable justification of such a remark as, ""I have always believed in planning big..."" With 65 years in the auto business, 45 of them with GM, and a crucial 23 of those as its chief executive officer, Mr. Sloan is undoubtedly the man to give us a comprehensive picture of the largest private industrial organization in the world, if any man can. But apparently none can, because he still must beg off and confine himself to ""the area...between the board of directors and the producing divisions"", and even that, admittedly, only from his personal viewpoint. The book is divided into two halves, the first devoted to the overall history of the corporation and the evolution of the ""basic General Motors concepts"", and the second consisting of detailed studies of various particular ""aspects and branches"". Laced throughout, very skillfully--one presumes by ""editor"" John McDonald of Fortune magazine--is a most intriguing account of grand-scale business strategy and a subtle argument in defense of that famous dictum, ""What's good for GM is good for the country"". When Mr. Sloan says in his Introduction ""I put no ceiling on progress,"" we can well believe him; but surely no one can read, on the last page, ""this is only the beginning,"" without experiencing a pronounced sense of vertigo.