Completely decomposable direct summands of torsion--free abelian groups of finite rank

Abstract

Let $A$ be a finite rank torsion--free abelian group. Then there exist direct decompositions $A=B\oplus C$ where $B$ is completely decomposable and $C$ has no rank 1 direct summand. In such a decomposition $B$ is unique up to isomorphism and $C$ unique up to near-isomorphism.