Western Electric and the Bell System

A SURVEY OF SERVICE

Edited By Albert B. Lardella

Published by Western Electric Company, 195 Broadway, New York, N.Y.

1964 Western Electric Company, Incorporated

Before clicking on the links at the end of this page that lead you to the Microsoft Word or the text form of this book, you might want to read this interesting true story submitted by Ted Comptonon one of the authors of this book that Ted personally knew. Here is what Ted had to say:

“I knew Al and was working with him in Western Electric’s Public Relations department at 195 Broadway in New York when the book was written and Al subsequently became the only guy - certainly the only ‘management’ employee - that in my 15 years with the company I ever knew to be fired.

It was a prize assignment, writing a book like that, and Al poured his heart into it for a year or more - a long time, at any rate. As the project neared completion he came to think he should get a byline for his effort - partly for the glory of it, and partly because, if he ever decided to look for another job he darn sure wanted that book in his portfolio. He took his request to the head of the PR Division and was turned down. (PR flacks didn’t get bylines. Period.)

But “no” was not exactly the answer Al wanted to hear, and so after the book’s final galley proofs had been approved and the book was ready to go to print he took it upon himself to add the following rather cryptic sentence:

‘Moreover, regarding audio breakthroughs in all respects, dependable engineering let life’s activities have impact surprising by one’s ordinary knowledge.’

The sentence appears beginning on line 1374 in the text version (or, searching for the word ‘moreover’, it’s the third occurrence). The first letters of the words in the sentence spell out ‘Mr AB Iardella his book.’

Unbeknownst to Al, just as he was committing his little act of subversion the boss suffered a change of heart and okayed the ‘Edited by’ credit as it appears on the final book and as you show on your website.

Al, of course, had no chance to take his ‘signature sentence’ back out.

It wasn’t long after the book was released that somebody ran across the sentence and started wondering what the heck it meant. Inquiries were made. The story was uncovered, and Al got bounced.

And, I might add, became a minor legend in the PR division.”

- submitted to this website by Ted Compton

This book was scanned and converted into an ASCII (text) file and also a Microsoft Word 97 document file. Please choose one of the two formats from the links below.