The Global Operator

No U.S. businessman was more global-minded than Sosthenes Behn, who created the world web of $760 million International Telephone & Telegraph Corp. Behn stretched his communications empire from Antwerp to Osaka, steered it through 34 years of war, revolution, boom and bust, and boom again. Always somehow able to snatch cash from disaster, he had a secret: a skill at diplomacy that few foreign ministers could match, a grip on his company that only a last tycoon could keep.

A hawklike man with an ascetic face, Behn worked in an eyrie high in the tower of the company's Manhattan headquarters, an oak-paneled chamber in rich Louis XIV style, a painting of the late Pius XI behind his desk. Often he would gather aides to listen on earphones as he telephoned subsidiaries on every continent, suavely speaking in all major languages, a trader who could charm dictators and dicker deals in every monetary exchange.

Life Strength. Bearing a Greek first name ("life strength"), Behn came out of the Virgin Islands, son of a Danish father and French mother, began in 1898 as a $3-a-week bank clerk in New York. With his brother Hernand he ran a small sugar brokerage house in Puerto Rico, in 1914 launched his real career by buying a tiny telephone company. When Sosthenes returned from World War I as a U.S. lieutenant colonel (with a Distinguished Service Medal), the brothers Behn issued 50,000 shares of common stock at $68.50 a share, founded I.T. & T.

Daring to risk their luck almost entirely abroad, the Behns first startled financiers in 1924 by winning a concession to manage and modernize Spain's sputtering national telephone system, went on to set up 33 international manufacturing and research facilities. They were big enough by 1928 to acquire the Mackay companies, including Postal Telegraph & Cable Corp. (eventually merged with Western Union). Until 1930, Sosthenes' tireless negotiating made I.T. & T. grow throughout the world, spread the company into Argentina, Australia, Belgium, China, England, France, Italy, Japan, Norway, Rumania.

Nick of Time. The 1929 crash left the Behns with a $122 million debt. Like a nine-lived cat, I.T. & T. was saved when the U.S. went off the gold standard, raising the value of foreign money. Sosthenes worked his way out of the hole (minus Hernand who died in 1933) by getting foreign subsidiaries to float local bond issues, boosting the parent company's U.S. credit. But no sooner was he solvent again than European upheavals put him right back in trouble.

In civil-war-torn Madrid, I.T. & T.'s 13-story Telefonica headquarters was shelled 184 times by Franco gunners, while retreating Loyalists threatened to blow it up as a suspected spy center. Ramrod-stiff Colonel Behn himself arrived to save I.T. & T.'s besieged fortress, eventually sold the whole Spanish company to Franco for $88 million. In Western Europe, Nazi expropriations cut the 40% income that I.T. & T. got from the subsidiary International Standard Electric, to zero. But in Rumania, Behn arrived in the nick of time, sold out for $13.8 million shortly before the country went over to the Nazis. In Argentina in 1946, he showed the same brilliant talent for beating a profitable retreat. Facing confiscation, he somehow maneuvered Dictator Peron into buying I.T. & T. there for $93 million.

But Behn's foreign success stood him less well at home after World War II. He guided I.T. & T. into domestic manufacturing, lost money. Sharply challenging his iron rule in 1947, a stockholders' group gradually forced Behn upstairs to board chairman. Last year at 74, Behn finally retired with I.T. & T. back at peak earning power (1956 sales: $501 million). Last week at 75, Global Businessman Behn died in Manhattan.

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