Sampson, Anthony. The Sovereign State of ITT. Greenwich CT: Fawcett Publications, 1974. 335 pages.

"The Sovereign State of ITT" (i.e., International Telephone and Telegraph) uncovers the history of a multinational that long ago became an autonomous pirate state. In the 1970s, ITT became famous, briefly, for bribing Nixon aides to back off an antitrust action, and to intervene to protect ITT interests in Allende's Chile. Sampson tells us much more -- e.g., spelling out the deals the stateless ITT cut with Hitler. It's an instructive tale. Because despite his critics, free-trader George Bush does have a "vision" -- one of a planet organized by corporations much like ITT, and run by men much like former ITT head Harold Geneen.

The son of a research scientist, Oxford-educated journalist Anthony Sampson writes elegant and exhaustively-researched books about powerful and often secretive elite groups: South Africa's white leadership, Britain's ossified elites, a multinational pirate corporation, the world oil industry, the international arms trade, international bankers. Without truckling, Sampson is able to get far enough inside such circles to show us how the world looks through their eyes -- while also providing a wealth of information that makes independent judgment possible.

-- Steve Badrich
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