ABSTRACT
Advanced television is a supertechnology representing a unique opportunity to rebuild the United States industrial base. Foreign governments and industries regard it as strategic to their national interests, and this is reflected in the enormous resources committed to its development. In the 1960s, when color television was on the verge of becoming a reality, the United States failed to establish its technological system as the world standard. An unusual sequence of events changed what should have been a technical decision into one dominated by international politics and flawed American responses. America lost not only dominance of its technology as the single worldwide standard, but it also lost control of its domestic industry. For the French, economic and technological dependence upon the United States portended a threat to national survival and political independence. The Sequential with Memory patent offered the French all the requisite conditions to develop a domestic color television industry.
