Albert L. Cole; ‘Business Brains’ of Reader’s Digest

Albert L. Cole, the founding general manager of Reader’s Digest and the acknowledged “business brains” behind the publishing empire founded by DeWitt and Lila Wallace in a Greenwich Village basement in 1911, has died at his home in Greenwich, Conn.

The executive credited with expanding the largest-selling magazine in the world into the fields of books, records and international circulation was 94. He died Tuesday.

In 1940, a year after joining the Digest after a successful career with Popular Science Publication Co. and other publishing firms, Cole prevailed upon the Wallaces to start a Spanish edition. Ten years later, in 1950, he was credited with expanding the burgeoning Digest empire into condensed books, and in 1959 into recordings.

He was chairman of the Digest’s executive committee from 1965 to 1969 and a member of the board until 1983.