ABSTRACT
American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) had been pursuing a tricky legal strategy. When joining General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, and United Fruit in the organizing of Radio Corporation of America (RCA), the partners had formed a patent pool which protected each in its traditional line of work, while dividing new empires insofar as they could foresee them. In 1924 the Federal Trade Commission issued a formal charge that AT&T, RCA, GE, Westinghouse, United Fruit, and subsidiaries had conspired to create a monopoly in broadcasting and the manufacture of radio devices. The Herculean behind-the-scenes battle between AT&T and the "radio group" remained largely unknown until 1938, when David Samoff made his files on the struggle available to Archer, who had just published his History of Radio. As a result Archer's subsequent volume, Big Business and Radio covered virtually the same period as his first, but added a detailed account of the battle of the titans, largely from an RCA vantage.
