Great find! But next time, if you would be so kind, copy the entire passage. Upon my looking up this reaction in my copy of March's 5th, I read some additional good info that you did not cite. Here is the entire passage word for word:
Arylation at a Carbon Containing an Active Hydrogen
(uninteresting paragraph)
* * *
"The reaction on unactivated halides can also be done with copper halide catalysts (the Hurtley Reaction), and with palladium complex catalysts. Compounds of the form CH3Z can be arylated by treatment with an aryl halide in liquid ammonia containing Na or K, for example (it gives this specific example):
ArX + CH3COCH3 ==NH3/K==> ArCH2COCH3 + ArCH2CH(OH)CH3
The same products are obtained, although in different proportions, when Na or K is omitted but the solution is irradiated with near-UV light. In either case other leaving groups can be used instead of halogens (e.g., NR3+, SAr) and the mechanism is the SRN1 mechanism. Iron(II) salts have also been used to initiate this reaction."
OrgSyn V, 12, 263; VI, 36, 873, 928; VII, 229.
And other ref's for many of these statements contained in the passage can be supplied by request, and one of us can type them later.
PrimoPyro
Vivent Longtemps La Ruche!