SPECTRAL LINES N O V E M B E R 1985 / V O L U M E 2 2 / N U M B E R 11

Don't hang up yet It was not our intention to make this a special issue on divesti­ture. When we began our planning we promised ourselves it would not center on the separation of the Bell operating com­panies from AT&T. That subject, we believed, had been thor­oughly covered by the press in general—from the dailies to the newsweeklies to the business press. Television had even done its share, and books had already been published by "insiders.'* Our intent was to probe into the postdivestiture future of telecommunications. The assignments we doled out among ourselves reflected that intent. Nevertheless, as each editor began preliminary research, it became clear that to look ahead with intelligence meant that to study the past was a necessity. And so divesdture and dereguladon became an in­tegral part of the report.

Whose decision was it? We thought it would be appropriate to lead off the telecommunications issue with a short discussion of the Modification of Final Judgment regarding the divesti­ture and just how it was arrived at. Senior Associate Editor Trudy E. Bell took on the assigimient and promptly found that even those intimately involved with the deliberations did not have a complete picture. The deeper she dug, the more complex it got. Eventually she was able to interview attorneys for both AT&T and the Jusdce Department, as well as insiders at AT&T. Along the way she got wind of a softball game to be played between teams of the opposing lawyers. An organizer of the game politely asked her not to be present. But her editor assigned her to cover the game anyway. Judge Harold Greene, who had previously been unavailable for an inter­view, was there, and her brief encounter with him resulted in a later, lengthier interview. By then the judge had had an oppor­tunity to read a draft of her manuscript, and although he had refused many invitations to write, speak, or be interviewed about the divestiture, he said he found Ms. Bell's article so interesting that "I felt I had to contribute to it."

Farewell, Ma Bell. For several years now-—long before divestiture—it has been Spectrum's policy not to use the term **Ma Bell." Many people omr the years had used it as a sometimes friendly, sometimes derogatory synonym for the Bell System. Most of them, we think, were **outsiders," since many Bell System employees reacted to the nickname like those San Franciscans who object to their city being called Frisco. Partially, I suppose, our eschewing of the name was in deference to our Bell System readers who might take offense, but there was also a degree of wanting to rise above the com­monplace and the cliche. In any event, even though **Ma Bell" is with us in memory only, we'll continue to honor our policy. Whenever we don't, you may consider it an honest mistake.

Those were the days. A Bell System operator from the 1940s told us recently how it was then: **We had an 'A ' board and a *B' board. The Β board was harder—we had to record time

and charges. But the pay was great; we never could complain about the pay. Once when I put through an emergency call, the man called back to find out who had handled his cdl and thanked me. I simply said, *You're welcome,' since we weren't allowed to talk to the customers—only 'number please' and *ihank you.' In a few days boxes of candy came in for all the operators from the same man."

Looking up. In a visit to AT&T Bell Laboratories during our research for this issue, we were greeted by overtones of op­timism on the part of top executives. The months following divestiture had been traumatic for all, as the question of where individual engineers would end up working had been an almost continual topic of corridor conversation. The Bell Labs had been given quotas of personnel it had to **divest" to Bellcore (Bell Communications Research Inc.). **It was a year 1 would not want to experience again," was the way one ex­ecutive summed it up.

Logomania. When Judge Greene OK'd the Modification of Final Judgment, the newly created holding companies seized the opportunity to identify themselves in a manner befitting important corporadons. With their respecdve operating com­panies, each is larger than Alcoa or General Mills. We as­signed editorial intern Charles Whiting to look into the history of Bell logotypes. He found that only two of the new entities incorporated the famous bell into their new corporate trademarks. Six of the firms had hired professional agencies to design new logos, but Walter Perkowski, a district manager for Bell Atlantic, decided to do it himself. In that respect, he was following in the footsteps of Angus Hibbard, the general superintendent of AT&T in 1888, who, legend has it, rejected submissions from several artists and architects in favor of his own design, the original AT&T bell.

Hibbard is then reputed to have walked along lower Broad­way in New York City studying signs, to conclude that blue on white would be the best color scheme for the bell. The logo was updated at least six times, most recently in 1%9.

What to call it. Because many others had treated the topic of divestiture, we wondered whether all the **good" headlines had been used up. Here are some of them: *Tor whom Bell toUs" and "Freed from Ma BeU" (New York Qty's Daily News); "Breaking the Connection" (American Heritage); "Breaking Up Is Hard Tb Do" (New Jersey Public Television); and "Ma Bell's Big Breakup" (Newsweek). W. Brooke Tmstall, a former AT&T vice president, had titled his book Disconnecting Parties. We even heard that one publication planned to publish a report called "The split heard 'round the world"—a fme title, we thought.

After due deliberation we settled on the simple "Hello again." We find it a positive note, suggesting optimism follow­ing a period of turmoil and uncertainty.

Donald Christiansen

lEEESPECTRUM NOVEMBER 1985 43