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Mickey Mouse, the world's greatest ambassador of goodwill, is called Mickey Maus in Germany, Mik-kii Mat-su in Japan, Mikki Hiiri in Finland, Topolino in Italy, and south of our border he is Raton Mickey. Walter Elias Disney, creator of this now legendary animated-cartoon character, is known all over the globe as just plain Walt. Not even bankers call him anything but that, although he heads an amusement and merchandising empire that has shown a more than 1,400 percent gain in profits over the past twelve years. The job of running this lucrative colossus -- with benevolent autocratic control -- brings Walt to the Walt Disney Productions studio every working day at 8:30 a.m. He long ago grew intolerant of the confining posts of presidentand chairman of the board, and now, as executive producer-in-charge of all production, he spends much of his time on the prowl, acting as catalyst for all facets of the highly diversified operation. Outwardly, he is simplicity personified, but close observers regard him as an extremely complicated bundle of nineteenth-century emotions in conflict with a keen twenty-first-century intellect -- a modern-day wizard with a knack for transforming the dross of simple ideas into mountains of gold. David Low, the distinguished British political cartoonist, regards him as "the most significant figure in graphic art since Leonardo." [...]