The Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T

by Steve Coll

They were the kind of lawyers who might enjoy trying a case against each other. And that was a good thing, because by the summer of 1978, one year after Phil Verveer’s resignation, it appeared that U.S. v. AT&T might move to trial faster than any antitrust case of its size in many decades. In part, that was because of Ken Anderson’s expedient methods. In part, too, it was because Charlie Brown’s team of executives, who would soon have full control over AT&T’s policies and strategies, wanted to resolve Bell’s antitrust problems as quickly as possible. They could see that deButts’ stand against competition had failed: MCI was a billion-dollar company now, and Japanese and other equipment makers were rapidly gaining market share at Western Electric’s expense. The challenge now was to free the phone company from its Washington quagmire and prepare for a competitive future, a future that Charlie Brown frequently referred to as the “information age.”