One by one, in their rented luxury sedans, the executives of American Telephone and Telegraph Company crossed the Card Sound Bridge and drove east into the morningsun, toward crocodile Lake. There was a warm, salty breeze wafting from the ocean; palm trees along the road bowed politely to the passing cars. It was Monday, May 8, 1972, the dawn of another dazzling week in nthe paradisiacal tropics of Key Largo, Florida.
Nearly all of AT7T’s executive had work for the company for two decades or more, and only a few had ever been employed by anyone else. There were the guardians, many of them strongly believed, of one of the most important public trust in America, “Ma Bell,” which happened also to be the largest corporation in the world. And now the public trust was under attack, from within and without, and was in danger of being destroyed….