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Missing the Boat. Ludwig took big risks in his youth; today he goes for the safe bet. More adventurous owners, including Niarchos and Onassis, keep some ships free so as to benefit from rises in spot charter rates. Ludwig tries to keep all his ships on charter from the moment they sail out of the yard. Thus he has not profited greatly by the recent large jump in spot rates. "He really missed that boat," says one of his shipping managers. "But I don't think he wanted to catch it. The danger of the spot charter business is that you can find yourself with an idle ship and crew, and lose all your profits."
What Ludwig looks for is a steady flow of cash that can be invested in projects that will nourish each other. In Panama, for example, Ludwig tankers take crude to the refinery he owns, and other Ludwig ships help to take the refined products to market. His biggest tankers cannot squeeze through the canal, so Ludwig is building a pipeline across the Isthmus of Panama. He is also developing a $300 million deep-water tanker port. Much steel will be used in these projects; Ludwig bulk carriers ship ore to steel plants.
Cultivating the Great. In his business, Ludwig deals with everyone from heads of government and international bankers to the captains of his own ships. He likes to mix with the great and near great. Richard Nixon, before he became President, was a Ludwig house guest; so was Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. As befits a man with much to conserve, Ludwig is politically conservative. On the grand piano in his New York penthouse stands a large photograph of him smiling happily at California Governor Ronald Reagan.
But Ludwig has few friends, and is seldom seen in public. He can be a difficult host: once, a friend recalls, he insulted a fading Hollywood star who came to dinner, and showed no remorse when she departed in tears. Ludwig is also a difficult guest. The daughter of a man who worked for him for many years says: "Mr. Ludwig is impatient with small talk. When he comes to supper he will shake hands, smile charmingly, and then go into a corner to talk business. If he admires the view, it is with the eye of a developer."
Ludwig has been married twice. The first marriage broke up quickly, amid much bitterness. His daughter by that marriage admits to "frustrating" relations with her father. Ludwig's second wife, whom he married in 1935, has a son by her first husband. Neither Mrs. Ludwig nor the son plays any part in Ludwig's business. For about 20 years, the Ludwigs lived in a comfortable but unremarkable house in Darien, Conn. Three years ago, they turned over the house to a hospital and made the Manhattan penthouse their main home. Their Darien neighbor for 17 years, Mrs. Edward P. Moore, cannot even describe them. "They hardly ever came out of the house," she remembers. "They just kept to themselves."