We were, therefore, struck by some findings of Giese""(eq 3) to the effect that several 8- methoxy mercurials undergo" reductive" coupling with electrophilic olefins upon treatment with sodium trimethoxyborohydride. Though proceeding presumably through a free-radical pathway, 12-14 the Giese reaction corresponds, in its overall synthetic consequence, to eq 1. We have begun to study the synthetic potentialities15J6 implicit in the reductive ...
