(1) Haley, NF Tetrahedron Lett. 1978, 5161. the cyclization of@-oxo tert-butyl trithiocarbonates (2) to 1, 3-dithiole-2-thione~.~ We now report a still more general synthetic route to the 1, 3-dithiole system which includes an efficient synthesis of 1, 3-dithiol-2-0nes.~ The synthetic path is illustrated in Scheme I. At first glance, the new