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,...
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