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SIGNATURE VINCENT P. CORTI
TITLE SECRETARY
January 30, 1998
To the Board of Directors of
The Investment Company of America, Inc.
In planning and performing our audit of the financial
statements of The Investment Company of America, Inc. (the
"Fund") for the year ended December 31, 1997, we considered
its internal control, including control activities for
safeguarding securities, in order to determine our auditing
procedures for the purpose of expressing our opinion on the
financial statements and to comply with the requirements of
Form N-SAR, not to provide assurance on internal control.
The management of the Fund is responsible for establishing
and maintaining internal control. In fulfilling this
responsibility, estimates and judgments by management are
required to assess the expected benefits and related costs of
control activities. Generally, control activities that are
relevant to an audit pertain to the entity's objective of
preparing financial statements for external purposes that are
fairly presented in conformity with generally accepted
accounting principles. Those control activities include the
safeguarding of assets against unauthorized acquisition, use
or disposition.
Because of inherent limitations in internal control, errors
or irregularities may occur and not be detected. Also,
projection of any evaluation of internal control to future
periods is subject to the risk that it may become inadequate
because of changes in conditions or that the effectiveness of
the design and operation may deteriorate.
Our consideration of internal control would not necessarily
disclose all matters in internal control that might be
material weaknesses under standards established by the
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. A
material weakness is a condition in which the design or
operation of any specific internal control components does
not reduce to a relatively low level the risk that errors or
irregularities in amounts that would be material in relation
to the financial statements being audited may occur and not
be detected within a timely period by employees in the normal
course of performing their assigned functions. However, we
noted no matters involving internal control, including
control activities for safeguarding securities, that we
consider to be material weaknesses as defined above as of
December 31, 1997.
This report is intended solely for the information and use of
management and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
PRICE WATERHOUSE LLP
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