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

by Steve Coll

The congressmen had good reason to be frightened. With a million employees spread around the country and a sizable political war chest at its disposal, the phone company was able to raise a terrible sound and fury about the Bell Bill. Its attack on Congress resembled a charge by Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iranian army, for what it lacked in strategic planning, it made up for with waves of human flesh. Bell lobbyists, who became known on Capitol Hill as “shepherds” for the hovering attention they paid to their congressional flock, were flown into Washington by the planeload. They were unusual lobbyists. They shunned Italian pinstripes and fancy Washington bistros, and few of them were lawyers. The vast majority were employed not at AT&T’s headquarters at 195 Broadway but by the local operating companies around the country. Unlike any other corporation, the phone company had employees in every congressional district, and this omnipresence became the key to the Bell Bill lobbying strategy.