International Telephone and Telegraph

Founded in 1920 by Sosthenes Behn, a native of the Virgin Islands. Bought out Compania Telefonica de Espana, the Spanish telephone monopoly in 1923. Began receiving "backing" by the J.P. Morgan firm in 1924.

Sosthenes Behn and Henry Manne, ITT's representative in Germany, met with Adolf Hitler in 1933 (as reported in the August 4, 1933 New York Times). ITT bought "substantial" interests in Focke-Wolfe and other German armaments firms, and reinvested much of the subsequent profits back into the armaments companies.

ITT was a major player in the CIA overthrow of Chilean president Salvador Allende. This is well known enough to be mentioned by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in a June 6, 2000 review on the relationship between indigenous peoples and multinational corporations. The relevant text is as follows:

We may, for example, refer to the case of the direct intervention of the North American multinational corporation, International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), in the overthrow of Salvador Allende's constitutional Government in Chile in 1973.

This was offered as evidence under the section heading "Why Is There Urgent Need for a Code (of conduct between multinationals and states)?"