Cfl and CD strckhmg vtbr.ulonal spectra oiCgl16 .tnd CgDg xc xcountcd Ior by a model bad on .tnltxmonic bond oscdlators muplcd in second order by rhc gcomstrnxlly dctcrmmrd hmsw cncrgy couplmg to the CC fr.uncwork. I'attcrns of SI \ close Ioral mode muh~plrts arc prcdtctcd m lhc loncst Icvcls oi cdch ovcrlonc mmlbld. Tr.msttlons IO opl~ullg acc*sublc mmponcnts or~bcsc mulrlplcls .u~lr: 1-0 ordcrsoimqmitudc stronger 1h.m o~hcr rrJnwuns ior Cbllb I. Introduction Benzene is one of the first tttolecttles to which the local mode model has been Jpplted. The narrowttcss of the bandwtdths and tlte stabtltty of the spectrum to partial deutcratton seented to imply that the CH stretchtng overtone spectrum could be attributed to a set of largely independent anltartttontc bond osctllatars wttlt term values sattsfactotily tilted by the Morse expression [ I-51 Recently Burberry and Albrecht [6] ltave extended the strict local mode model tn benzene by includtng quadratic potential energy coupling terttts between tlte CH bond osctllators. Force constants were taken from the ltarmottic force field by Whtffen [7], but no allowance was ntade for utteraction wtth the CC skeletal vtbrattons. Thts calculation gave good agreement wtth the known tnfrared absorption frequency date. No fundamenr;rl splrrrings between B,, , Ezg, El, and Al, components were however reported 3s a direct test of the inter CH bond coupltng strength.