Reported here are the isolations of a number of diastereomeric P-hydroxy sulfones obtained by the condensations of a-sulfonyl carbanions with aldehydes. Configurations were assigned from nmr spectra of the resulting threo and erythro isomers. Sodium borohydride reductions of P-keto sulfones were found to produce the threo isomers in excellent yields. Conversion of threo 1 to the p-chloro sulfone by treatment with thionyl chloride proceeds ...