At first sight it would seem that the fact that we obtained smooth decarboxylation and isolated the p-hydroxy acid as the only product, was in direct contrast to Corey's mechanism. This need not be the case since it has been demonstrated previously', 6 that tri0uorocrotonic acid is attacked very readily by nucleophilic reagents: therefore as the decarboxylative elimination occurs (I-111, the hydroxyl group may be forming a loose ion pair with the ...
