Free Dethroning the King by Julie MacIntosh

period,” said Steve Kopcha, a former ad agency executive and copywriter of some of Anheuser-Busch’s best-known commercials. “You just did not want to be around when he was angry. He’s got these piercing blue eyes—I mean, he’s scary. You could not con this guy at all. I had a lot of respect for August III.”
    One of The Third’s former mentees called him a “cold son of a bitch” for kicking Gussie to the curb and for skipping the funerals of longtime employees, and then added that he was “really one of my heroes.”
    â€œHe was a control freak of the first order,” said a former advertising agency executive. “He demanded complete, abject loyalty, almost like a monarch would in the old days.”
    â€œHe was a complete control freak,” agreed Mike Roarty, with no hint of malice. “He marched to his own drummer.” Roarty’s wife, Lee, perched at his side, started ticking through a list of August’s peculiarities—his claustrophobia, his fear of elevators, and his dislike of crowds—before Mike added: “In the 1980s, much of the innovation that came out of the company was dictated by August III. You can’t deny his contribution.”
    That point yields little disagreement. During the years August III ran Anheuser-Busch, he was Anheuser-Busch. His life, in turn, was almost singularly defined by his work at the company. And he structured it so that his subordinates’ lives could revolve around the office as well. The campus around Anheuser’s headquarters downtown sported enough cushy amenities to eliminate most of the excuses an executive might use to leave the site: a health club, a fancy corporate dining room, and even a barbershop. Many insiders avoided these sites at all costs to keep from being cornered by The Third on the treadmill or while waiting in line for a breakfast table. But 60- to 70-hour workweeks were the norm even for those who ate their eggs at home—and usually with a few extra hours put in at night or on weekends. An Anheuser employee was never really “off duty.”
    â€œIf you worked for August, you could expect calls any time day or night,” said Charlie Claggett. “I remember once, there was something like thirteen inches of snow on the ground and we were supposed to be out at Spirit of St. Louis Airport at 8:00 A.M. The city was shut down, but it never occurred to any of us that that meeting wasn’t going to happen. It was not even an issue. We knew it would start at eight, and if you weren’t there, it would start without you.”
    Christmas and New Year’s weren’t immune, since The Third issued performance reviews around that time. In keeping with his extraordinary talent for being everywhere at once, he personally reviewed somewhere between 30 and 50 of his top executives each year. At their allotted times, the officers would filter one by one into the waiting area outside the conference room next to his office and then take their seats, clammy and sweating, as they waited their turn. Every 10 minutes or so, the conference room’s current occupant would stumble out, wearing a facial expression that indicated how his review had gone, and the next person in line would step gingerly inside.
    â€œYou’d be in the bullpen waiting, and if they had issues with a particular person, it would take more than ten or fifteen minutes and things would get backed up,” said an executive who underwent the process for many years. “You’d end up with three or four guys sitting in the bullpen, looking at each other like ‘How do you think yours is going to go this year?’ It was just weird.”
    The procedure, and the nerve-wracking anticipation that led up to it, made for some tense Decembers. But it also gave top staffers a few minutes of The Third’s personal attention, and the troops further down in Anheuser’s ranks always