MA BELL, the world's biggest company and largest private telephone system, went to her Eternal Reward on January 1. Although she was reincarnated as a new, slimmed down AT&T and seven regional holding companies, the successors to the old Bell System will be vastly changed from the giant telephone company which was such an intimate part of American life for most of this century. The most significant changes are the separation of AT&T from the Bell operating companies and the introduction of increased competition in the telephone field. Most of us who believe in free market economics think the change will be beneficial.
But before we say a last farewell to Ma Bell, we should at least hold a post mortem to find out the true causes of her demise. What killed Ma Bell? Why did she have to die? How did her terminal condition arise?
Some believe the Bell System was brought down by the U.S. Justice Department. The Justice Department had wanted to break up AT&T for a long time and had first attempted it with a 1949 civil suit. While that lawsuit had been settled by a 1956 Consent Decree which left AT&T virtually intact, a second Justice Department suit filed in 1974 was more successful and resulted in the dramatic divestiture settlement which was announced on January 8, 1982 and carried out two years later.
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