A Meeting of Minds

In the Encyclopaedia Britannica, that 35 million-word compendium of classified knowledge, the G. & C. Merriam Co. rates only two brief mentions. Last week Merriam leaped right off the pages and into Britannica's corporate arms. Chairman William Benton's $13,960,000 purchase of the publisher of the Merriam-Webster dictionaries not only unites two of the world's best-known reference works, but two of its oldest. Prosperous Britannica, Scotland-born but American-owned since 1901, is 196; debt-free Merriam, which bought Noah Webster's work from his heirs in 1843, is a spry 133. Merriam's sales last year: $5,980,422; its profits: $859,000.

Having amassed a fortune in advertising (Benton & Bowles) before he was 35, Bill Benton took over Britannica as a personal venture in 1943, when he was vice president of the University of Chicago. He persuaded Britannica's owner, Sears Roebuck, to give the encyclopaedia to the university, but the trustees balked until Benton put up $100,000 working capital, which led to stock control. The university lent its name and editorial advice in exchange for a royalty--now 3%--on U.S. sales.

Using what he had learned on Madison Avenue, Benton poured money into promotion and advertising, built up a meticulously trained force of 5,000 full-time door-to-door salesmen (many earn $25,000 a year, their division managers $200,000). He spread out into the Great Books, junior reference works, an atlas, texts and books-of-the-year. All this hustle has built Britannica's sales from $3,000,000 when Benton took charge to $125 million last year. The royalty from Britannica has enriched the University of Chicago by $25 million.

Benton, a former U.S. Senator from Connecticut, former Assistant Secretary of State and now U.S. Ambassador to UNESCO, at 64 keeps in touch with his publishing realm by flying 75,000 miles a year to chat with underlings, dictating up to 8,000 words a day into a machine to pepper aides with ideas. He has his eye on markets abroad, where he considers the growing interest in American culture, particularly in books, "a historic event of our times." Says he: "We're going to take Webster into the world." While he does, Merriam will operate as a Britannica subsidiary, keep its Springfield, Mass., staff and offices. And Merriam's U.S. sales should net the University of Chicago an extra $150,000 a year.

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