OIL: The Do-lt-Yourself Tycoon

The Do-It-Yourself Tycoon(See Cover)

In Paris’ fashionable George V Hotel, no accommodation is cheaper, none less fashionable than the two shabbily genteel, Y.M.C.A.-sized rooms of Suite 801. Last week, as it has been for weeks, 801 was registered only under the name of “Monsieur Paul.” Inside it might have passed for a bookie’s office or a convention caucus room. Dozens of papers were scattered over the floor. In the entrance hall, piles of string-tied boxes and suitcases teetered perilously. Around the rooms, in wild disarray, stood an unmade day bed, the cold remains of a meager meal, a collection of half-filled rum and Coca-Cola bottles. Amid it all sat a tall, heavy-shouldered man whose massive head, topped by long, reddish-brown hair, gave him the appearance of an aging lion. Contented as a man in the plushest executive suite, American Oil Billionaire Jean Paul Getty, 65, probably the world’s richest private citizen, went calmly about his work.

Again and again the phone rang. Getty answered with a clear but tentative voice —as if he expected the call to bring him some annoyance. He spoke with a Swedish importer who wanted 20,000 tons of fuel oil a month from Getty’s Middle East fields. He turned down an invitation to lunch. He took a call from a shipbuilder in Tokyo about details of a new Getty supertanker. Turning to a pile of cables, he read a report on his new, 18-in. Mideast pipeline, fired off an answer to a Turkish importer’s request for a large quantity of crude oil. In midafternoon Getty received a distinguished visitor: John D. Rockefeller III, 51, scion of an older oil dynasty, who came to ask his financial support for a $75 million art center in Manhattan. Getty expressed interest, made no commitment. Swiftly he worked through his business mail, answering the letters by scribbling a notation in the margins, then popping them into envelopes to mail back. Shortly after dark he left the hotel and mailed his letters, trusting no one else to perform this important job. Then he set out on his daily two-mile walk through Paris (he carries a pedometer to make sure he goes just the right distance), pondering along his way the problems of the world—his world.

J. Paul Getty’s world is Getty Oil Co., the core of one of the most complex corporate structures ever built. As Getty Oil’s president and chief stockholder, he owns or controls some 40 companies, ranging from Tidewater Oil Co. to firms that make trailers, own hotels, sell life insurance. Wherever Getty happens to be, there is centered the world of Getty Oil and its satellites. In an age of teamwork, J. Paul Getty is the last of a vanishing breed: an autocratic tycoon who runs his own show, has nothing but contempt for the modern, hemmed-in executive and the committee concept of running a business. “Most of the people in the top management of American business,” says Lone Wolf Getty, “are promoted clerks, engineers and salesmen. I like Benjamin Franklin’s advice: if you want it done correctly, do it yourself. I do it all myself. How many others are there like me?”

Another Vanderbilt or Ford? Anyone who has ever crossed Paul Getty’s path would agree that there is no one quite like him. He has not set foot in the U.S. in close to seven years, directs his business largely from minimum-rate hotel rooms in London and Paris. He carries his papers in a battered suitcase, often tied with string, stores all the other details of his empire in a brilliant, tenacious mind that stores up facts and figures like an electronic computer, can summon up on a moment’s notice the week’s linen bill at Manhattan’s Hotel Pierre, which he bought in 1938 for only $2,350,000,* or what it costs (28¢) every time a toilet is flushed at his rigs in the water-shy Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. He never goes to business conferences, never meets with company directors, makes all important decisions—often taking only a minute to decide what a board of directors might dally over for weeks. When the president of one of his companies once ventured to make a suggestion, J. Paul Getty snapped: “Who does that fellow think he is? Why, he’s nothing but a goddamned office boy.”

To those who meet him casually, Getty appears to be a scholarly old professor or archaeologist. He is a man of varied talents who speaks five languages fluently, has a smattering of four more, reads Latin and ancient Greek, collects great art, can talk on many subjects, has written learnedly on both art and the more esoteric sport of weight lifting. Yet he is full of fears and phobias about accidents. He does not like to fly or be driven by a chauffeur (he drives his own Cadillac), or ride in an elevator until he has satisfied himself that the operator is experienced. Even crossing the English Channel, he usually takes the biggest ocean liners. He worships success; yet he has been married five times (“I sincerely regret all my divorces,” says Getty, “because I don’t like anything to be unsuccessful”). He complains bitterly about the necessity of tipping (which he does sparingly), believes charity is bad because it keeps people from working. Some consider him a genius, others a charlatan—but few are indifferent to the personality of J. Paul Getty. Said a U.S. business acquaintance: “He is the worst man I’ve ever known.” Said a Wall Street broker: “He is comparable to Henry Fords Commodore Vanderbilt or Andrew Mellon.”

Such appraisals have little effect on Getty. “I have no complex about wealth,” he says. “I have worked hard for my money, producing things people need. I believe that the able industrial leader who creates wealth and employment is more worthy of historical notice than politicians or soldiers.” Yet for his inspiration Getty looks backward to the great politicians and soldiers of history. One of his favorite pastimes is driving out to Waterloo and standing alone on the spot where Napoleon directed his armies.

Industrial War. This week Getty has his own forces deployed for an industrial war as challenging as Waterloo. Part of his problem is the problem of the entire oil industry: a drop-off in demand for petroleum products that has created an oil surplus, production cutbacks and slipping prices. But the oil industry’s knottiest problem—and Getty’s crucial one—is imports. The U.S. Government’s “voluntary” quotas on imports of crude have not cut them enough to satisfy independent U.S. producers, and the Government is being pressured to cut imports further or introduce mandatory quotas.

The squeeze on imports could not have come at a worse time for Getty. The bulk of his oil reserves lies in the Middle East, where he is the only individual operator in the same league with the big oil companies. From the wells of the Neutral Zone, 100,000 bbl. of oil gush daily from beneath the golden sands, and 5 billion more in proven reserves lie under the surface (nearly one-sixth as much as all U.S. reserves, but much less than the “tens of billions” Getty says will eventually be proved up in the zone). To move his share of this flow (50%), Getty has already built seven supertankers, has 16 more abuilding and on order in shipyards in France and Japan; by the time he has finished, his fleet will be one of the world’s biggest, worth well over $200 million. Most important of all, Getty scrapped Tidewater’s huge, outmoded refinery in Bayonne, N.J. and in its place built the world’s most modern refinery (cost: $200 million) 15 miles south of Wilmington, Del. But Tidewater’s import quota for the refinery, under the voluntary program, was set at only 34,200 bbl. daily—less than half of what it needs to operate efficiently—v. the 84,600 bbl. that Tidewater had scheduled.

Good Prospect. Most oil companies are obeying the voluntary quotas for fear the Government will make them mandatory. But not Getty. He has flouted the system, stirred up bitterness and resentment among his competitors (who are beating the quotas themselves by increasing imports of refined products) by keeping Tidewater’s crude imports to an average of 64,100 bbl. a day—almost 100% over quota. Getty realizes that as long as the rest of the industry toes the mark—and thus keeps overall imports under the overall quota—the Government is helpless to force Tidewater alone to conform, since it cannot make the quota mandatory for only one company.

Getty is also getting ready to protect himself abroad while battling quotas in the U.S. He has just finished a $5,000,000, 50,000-bbl.-a-day refinery near his Wafra oilfield in the Neutral Zone, has an option on a building site in West Germany’s Ruhr, where he is planning to build a $12 million refinery. Getty’s Wafra oilfield produces a sour crude that is ideal for heavy fuel oil, and Getty plans to channel 85% of his production to fuel-hungry Europe, leave his Tidewater refineries to depend on U.S. crude if quotas are stiffened. Getty is convinced that he has outflanked not only the Government and his competitors but the oil glut as well. “All in all,” he chuckles, “I would say that the prospect is very good.”

Fine Days. How did Getty become a billionaire? His enemies carp that his prospects were so good from the very start that he could not miss, say: “If your dad left you all that money, you could do it, too.” This does justice to neither Jean Paul Getty nor his ambitious, strong-willed father. When J. Paul was born in 1892, George F. Getty was a prosperous Minneapolis lawyer. On the day when he heard his son’s first wail, he calmly turned on his heel, strode downstairs and said to the maid: “Set another place for lunch.” By the time Paul was ten, he had developed into so thrifty a lad that he went without lunch for months; instead, he saved the $1.75 a week that he got to buy his school lunch, ate a bigger dinner at home. His diary of the time is a record of gleeful acquisitiveness: “Fine day. Papa gave me a quarter to put in my purse”; “Fine day. Mama gave me ten cents.”

When Paul was eleven his father moved to Indian Territory (soon—1907—to be a part of the new state of Oklahoma), began to search for oil on a barren, sandy track that had cost him $500. He hit oil with his first well. A few years later he was a millionaire—and Paul was bitten by the oil bug himself.

The First Million. The Gettys moved to Los Angeles, where Paul’s love of books earned him the high school nickname, “Dictionary Getty.” After two years at the University of Southern California and the University of California at Berkeley, and a year studying economics at Oxford, Paul took a world tour on a $250-a-month allowance from his parents. In 1914, at 21, Paul Getty arrived in Tulsa, Okla., ready for work. He began buying and selling oil leases with his father’s backing (on a 30-70 split). In his first year he made $40.000, announced elatedly: “I will stay in Tulsa until I make a million dollars.” By June 1916, just 19 months after he started on his own, he had made it.

Getty went back to Los Angeles and joined his father in buying and selling leases and drilling wildcat wells. He took up bodybuilding, hired professional wrestlers to tussle with him in his basement gym. By night, he squired a galaxy of bright young girls through the best West Coast nightclubs. In 1923, at 30, he married Jeannette Demont, 18, whom he had met in Los Angeles. Three years later, after the birth of his first son, George Franklin Getty II, they were divorced in Mexico. Next year Paul married Allene Ashby, 17, a Texas rancher’s daughter and excellent horsewoman.

Be Thrifty. Paul’s first divorce shocked his father, a Methodist turned Christian Scientist, but he had recovered enough by 1928 to sell his son a one-third interest in George F. Getty, Inc. for $1,000,000. Just three weeks later Paul took his third wife, Adolphine Helmle, 18, daughter of a German industrialist. That was too much for George Getty. When he died in 1930, he left Paul only $500,000 of his $10 million estate. Most of the rest went to Paul’s mother, a tough-minded old lady of sturdy Scots-Irish stock.

Paul was not overly distressed—he was well on the way to making his fourth million. But, overwhelmed by admiration for his father’s accomplishments, he set out to prove that he could do much better. His formula was simple: “Be thrifty, save a little money, and leave a small surplus for investment.” When the Depression hit, Getty decided to invest the small surplus, figured it was a lot cheaper and safer to buy stocks of oil companies than to take chances searching for oil.

Life with Mother. Getty’s timing was perfect. Says he: “I made my money by buying when other people didn’t want to buy.” His eye lit on Pacific Western Oil Corp., a holding company with huge oil reserves and plenty of cash. Its stock had hit bottom at 2⅞. Paul bought 520,000 of its 1,000,000 shares, took control in 1932. He ruthlessly cut expenses, used the company’s working capital for expansion or to buy into other Depression-harrassed companies. Pacific Western’s top-heavy executive force was fired, then rehired at half the former salaries. Flushed with success, Getty got into the habit of making his executives stand at attention when they came into his office. For such conduct, even in a business noted for hard, ruthless tactics, he soon got a reputation as something special. Says a former associate: “Paul Getty was a one-man man. He was for himself, first, last and always.”

Getty also began a battle with his mother for control of the Getty fortune. He wanted to put the money to work buying new properties, but mother Getty did not completely trust her son’s judgment. Though she occasionally relented enough to back a few of his deals, she kept a tight hold on the money. Once, when Getty drilled a hole on California’s Signal Hill that bottomed out on someone else’s property, he tried to sell it to his mother. A friend warned her against buying. Said Mrs. Getty: “What you’re trying to tell me is that Paul is a crook.” Then she added proudly: “But he’s awfully smart, isn’t he?” Finally, she became convinced that her son was too smart to buck indefinitely. She sold her controlling interest in George F. Getty, Inc. to the company—in effect, to Paul, who was president—and threw in $1,200,000 in stock and notes the company owed her. Noted Getty in his diary: “Mother rather thankfully resigned as director of George F. Getty, Inc.”

“I Can Wait.” Paul Getty now had plentiful oil reserves and cash for further conquests. For his next victim he picked one of the giants of U.S. oil: Tidewater (then called Tide Water Associated Oil Co., with assets of $192 million), which was dominated by Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey). Tidewater stock was selling at only $2 a share when Getty began picking it up; between 1932 and 1934 he put out more than $8,000.000 to buy the stock.

By swaps, deals, secret purchases, Getty waged a knockdown, drag-out fight for Tidewater that lasted for 19 years. When Standard Oil and Tidewater’s President William F. Humphrey saw what Getty was up to, they hurriedly put together a new holding company called Mission Corp. They put into Mission 1,128,123 shares of Tidewater and 557,557 shares of Skelly Oil Co., a well-integrated oil company controlled by Standard; they then distributed the Mission Corp. shares to Standard’s stockholders as a stock dividend, to keep Tidewater stock out of Getty’s hands. But Getty started buying Mission stock also, got one block of 200,000 shares from the Rockefeller interests.

Bill Humphrey had other stratagems. He diluted Getty’s voting strength in Tidewater by having additional shares of stock issued, exercised his option to buy Tidewater stock out of Mission Corp.’s holdings, even managed to have Getty thrown off the Tidewater board. Getty was not discouraged; by 1937 he had won control of Mission Corp.—and its Tidewater and Skelly holdings. He stubbornly kept chipping away at Humphrey and the Tidewater management, increased Mission Corp.’s holdings in Skelly to 56%, and used Skelly’s dividends to buy even more Tidewater stock. Said he: “They are old men, and I can wait.”

Penthouse Life. While he battled, Getty also kept busy with other affairs. He was divorced again, soon married Ann Rork, 24, a Hollywood producer’s daughter who had first caught Paul’s eye when she was only 14. He lived more like a millionaire than he ever has since, leased a penthouse in Manhattan so vast, jokes Getty, “that when I allowed a friend to give a dance for several hundred people at one end, I couldn’t hear the music of the twelve-piece orchestra at the other end.” He traveled through Europe picking up bargains for his art collection (present value: $4,000,000), which he had started in Berlin in 1931 with a $1,500 purchase of a few prints and paintings. Says Getty: “I bought art both because it was beautiful and because it was a good investment.” He also found time to write a book about his father’s oil business, and at 46, after a fourth divorce, take yet another wife, Louise Dudley Lynch, 20, a Greenwich, Conn, socialite.

When war broke out, Getty asked Secretary of the Navy Knox for a commission as a seagoing officer. Instead, he was asked to take over personal direction of Tulsa’s Spartan Aircraft Co., then a subsidiary of Skelly Oil. Getty forthwith ensconced himself in a Tulsa bungalow with twelve-inch-thick, reinforced concrete walls as a protection against air raids. He split up the plant into competitive production teams, forced the unhappy supervisor of any lagging team to sit behind a large eight ball until he increased output. By war’s end Spartan was one of the most efficient and prosperous small aircraft companies in the U.S. Getty bought it outright from Skelly when no one thought plane companies had any future, turned it into a prosperous manufacturer of mobile homes—auto trailers.

Victory at Last. In 1946 Getty took another step in his efforts to build up a big oil company: he merged George F. Getty, Inc. into Pacific Western to form Pacific Western Oil Corp.

Relentlessly, he kept up his fight for Tidewater. In 1948 he got Mission Corp. to form a new holding company, called Mission Development Co., as an ingenious vehicle to swallow up Tidewater stock as Mission Corp. acquired it. He then had Pacific Western buy 127,777 shares of Tidewater’s common stock from a Dutch brokerage house, giving him control of 35% of Tidewater’s outstanding stock. By 1951 Getty had won numerical control of Tidewater, and in 1953 he elected all but one of his directors to the board. Tidewater had been sitting for years on a big cash reserve and watching the rest of the oil world go by; Getty kicked it off and got it running. He used the cash to build new tankers, expand refineries, build the Delaware refinery.

With the Tidewater victory in sight, Getty figured that he needed even more oil to feed the giant refiner. The place to get it was one of the few Mideast areas left untouched: the Neutral Zone, a barren, null tract owned jointly by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Already, the American Independent Oil Co. (Aminoil) had a 60-year concession from Kuwait for its half share in the zone, and several companies were negotiating with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia for his share.

Getty stepped in and outbid them all. Though not a drop of oil had yet been discovered in the Neutral Zone, he offered Saud $9,500,000 in cash, $1,000,000 a year whether he hit oil or not, to be applied against 55¢-per-bbl. royalties and 25% of the company’s net profits from Neutral Zone production. In 1949, “in the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,” Pacific Western and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia signed an agreement giving Getty one-half interest in the Neutral Zone for 60 years. Getty sent son George to run the new venture, pumped $7,500,000 into drilling and exploration (Getty shares such costs, and all oil removed, on a fifty-fifty basis with Aminoil).

Luck in the Eocene. The gamble did not begin to pay off until 1953, when drillers hit a rich field 3,500 feet down in the Burgan sand at Wafra. Oil began flowing plentifully the next year, and production had doubled by 1956, when Getty made his second trip to the zone. He clambered over the rigs, walked tirelessly over the sands. A good practical geologist, he decided to drill in the neglected Eocene formation, down only 1,200 ft. Eocene oil can be pumped cheaper and faster than other oil ($30,000 and one week to drill a well, v. $200,000 and six weeks), is ideally suited for refining into heavy fuel oil. But oilmen laughed at the idea that there was enough oil in the Eocene formation to be commercially produced.

Getty not only made a big strike of Eocene oil at 1,200 feet, but got right to work on a refinery to turn it into heavy fuel. Since 1956, when Getty formally changed Pacific Western’s name to Getty Oil Co., Getty’s half share of Neutral Zone production rocketed from 5,841,728 bbl. yearly to 11.6 million bbl. last year. Getty considers that just a beginning; the wells are scheduled to double production this year. The zone has 60 wells producing 100,000 bbl. daily, another 60 that have struck oil but are shut in until a bigger pipeline is laid and Getty’s refinery goes on stream. Begrudgingly, Aminoil has conceded Getty’s wisdom, itself is drilling the Eocene formation. Meantime, Getty has acquired a .4167% interest in the Iranian Consortium, good for about 700 million bbl. in reserves.

Into the Wastebasket. Such successes have thrust Getty into the public spotlight—and he is not sure he likes the glare. His wealth attracts about 1,000 letters a week from people who want money. Getty reads most of the letters himself, throws them into the wastebasket. The only recorded instance in which Paul Getty has ever loosened his purse strings was the donation of $500,000 worth of art from his collection (now housed in a special museum wing of his 64-acre seaside ranch at Malibu, Calif.) to the Los Angeles County Museum. Everyone automatically assumed there was some special tax benefit in it for Getty. (There was not.)

His penny pinching has become a legend. He eats simply, dresses well but inexpensively, spends about $280 a week for personal needs. He once took a party of friends to a dog show in London. The admission fee was 5 shillings (70¢), but a sign over the entrance said: “Half price after 5 p.m.” It was then twelve minutes to 5. Said Billionaire Getty: “Let’s take a walk around the block for a few minutes.” On another occasion he was persuaded by British-born Author and Actress Ethel Le Vane to send some silk ties to famed Art Critic Bernard Berenson, whom she and Getty had just visited while preparing their book, Collector’s Choice, a well-reviewed narrative of their hunt for art treasures. Getty caught Collaborator Le Vane writing “From Paul and Ethel” on the accompanying card. He immediately demanded that she pay half the cost of the ties, on the ground that she was getting half the credit for the gift.

Says British Publisher Mark” Goulden, publisher of Collector’s Choice: “Money is an abstract thing to him, representing vast power. His frugality is a wall he has built around himself deliberately to stave off people who want to have a piece of his colossal wealth. I don’t believe for a moment that he gets any enjoyment out of his money. He’s just a miser—period.”

Getty makes little effort to stave off one group. He is still as fond of attractive women as he was in his bachelor days, has squired a collection of them through Europe. Kis current favorite is dark, stately Penelope Kitson, 34, a British divorcee and mother of three children. Still healthy and vigorous, Getty keeps in shape with a daily round of calisthenics, dyes his hair, has had his face lifted in a London clinic. He drinks sparingly of dark rum in Coca-Cola, constantly munches chocolates, does not smoke, and does not like others to smoke in his presence.

Visit to Mount Olympus. Why has Getty stayed away from the U.S. for almost seven years? His critics insist it is to avoid either taxes (Getty pays full U.S. taxes on his personal income of more than $1,000,000) or lawsuits by his ex-wives. But Getty is on friendly terms with them, takes care of them financially. They speak well of him, and wife No. 4, who gets $1,000 a month, is writing the story of his life. Getty has his own explanation: “There are plenty of capable people in my companies who know the Stateside oil business. But almost nobody in the U.S. knows anything about Middle Eastern oil. I stay over here to be in close touch with my Middle Eastern oil business.”

He rarely sees his five sons, four of whom work for his companies. Son George, 34, a vice president of Tidewater, recently flew to Paris to see his father, with whom he has spent only six weeks since the first year of his life. He was understandably anxious. Said he: “Mr. Getty is the smartest businessman I know. Coming to see him is like a visit to Mount Olympus.” Getty’s youngest son, Timothy Christopher, 12, who is recovering from a series of eye operations, lives at the Pierre with his mother, Louise Lynch Getty; Getty talks with him by telephone, but has not seen him for a year and a half. Son Jean Ronald Getty, 28, is Tidewater’s vice president in charge of marketing. Sons Gordon Peter, 24, and Eugene Paul, 25, will go to the Neutral Zone next month to meet their father, work like any regular hands among the drills and the rigs. Says George: “Mr. Getty would never promote anyone just because he was his son. With him, performance is the thing.”

So highly does Getty value performance that he does not trust anyone to do a good job who does not have a moneyed stake in his work. Says Getty: “I think having your own money in the business you are running makes you a lot sharper. Stockholders in my companies at least have the consolation of knowing that if they lose money, I will lose a lot more.”

Getty has taken care of his stockholders in the manner of many oil companies that pay small dividends, put profits into development. As a result, the investment in a single share of Getty Oil bought for $3 when Getty took over Pacific Western in 1932 is now worth $152, counting stock splits. In the same manner, Skelly Oil stock has risen from $26, when the company came into Getty’s hands in 1937, to $231 today; Tidewater has marched forward from $19 in 1951 to $93 today.

Getty Oil’s earnings zoomed from $7,887,947 in 1956 to an estimated $17.3 million last year, and Skelly’s earnings rose from $34.1 million to an estimated $37.3 million. But Tidewater is expected to report an earnings drop from $34 million in 1956 to $27.2 million in 1957. Reason: Refiner Tidewater has been harder hit than the producing end of Getty’s empire by the drop-off in gasoline demand.

Danger on the Structure. Getty’s ultimate goal is to create a self-contained oil complex, tying together Tidewater’s tankers, refineries and marketing facilities, Skelly’s plentiful Stateside crude resources, and Getty’s own fabulous production in the Neutral Zone. Wall Street is exhausted from predicting such a merger, but Getty has his reasons for wanting to keep The Street in the dark. If he gives advance notice of any move, investors may buy up the outstanding shares of the company he needs stock in, make it more expensive for Getty to acquire. In the complicated structure that Getty has carefully built, he runs the danger of losing control of one company if he has to pay out too much of its stock in exchange for another. Says a business associate: “Paul can’t take two steps at once or the whole thing might topple.”

One reason Getty must move slowly is the complicated U.S. tax law. For example, before he can merge Getty Oil and Tidewater in a tax-free deal, according to law he must hold 80% of Tidewater’s stock directly. He now controls 65% through Getty Oil (of which he controls 81%), Mission Corp. (46.98%), and Mission Development (47.21%). The problem: to get all that Tidewater stock into his own hands. This month Getty made another move designed to do just that. By arranging several stock exchanges among his companies, he hopes to get 65% direct control of Tidewater (TIME, Jan. 27).

What Accomplishment? Such maneuverings take time—and Getty is a man who has built an empire by outwaiting people. But he realizes that there is one adversary he cannot outwait. Says he tersely: “I am aware of the transitory nature of human life.” Envisaging the terrible stock sell-off and taxes that would follow his death and the settlement of his estate, he established a trust in California, with his sons as participants, put half his holdings into it. “I’m a bad boss,” he once told a friend. “A good boss develops successors. There is nobody to step into my shoes.”

Getty has devoted his life to business with a single-minded dedication—and stunning success—that few men ever attain. Yet, like Midas of ancient legend, he has found no contentment in his golden touch. He has few friends, no close family ties. “The trouble,” complains Getty, “is that everybody talks about how much money I make. I wonder what sort of accomplishment it is to make a lot of money?” Yet to Getty, acquiring money—and the power that goes with it—is apparently enough. Even now he says, with obvious relish: “I don’t know of anybody who could sell out for more than I could.”

*In the fall of last year the Pierre went cooperative, making it worth $25 million to Getty, who still controls the property through a mortgage. Getty has also started construction of a 22-story, $13,250,000 skyscraper, the Getty Building, on land he owns next to the Pierre on upper Fifth Avenue; it will be finished in the fall of 1958. Last year construction of another Getty property was completed: Mexico’s plush, $4,000,000 Hotel Pierre Marques at Revolcadero Beach.