phenylacety1) indole (IIa) 4 appeared to be more promising as a potentially general route to the desired class of compounds. It has now been found that the accessibility of the 3-(o- nitrophenylacetyl) indoles (11) required as starting materials is sharply limited, a deficiency which has confined the over-all method to a few special cases sumniarized by the sequence of formulas (I to 111, ad).