Charlie Brown died this week. Death came Charlie’s way on November 12, 2003. He was 82 years of age.
In proper terms, Charlie was Charles Lee Brown, the former Chairman of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Charlie worked for AT&T and its Bell System companies from 1946 until his retirement in 1986, a forty year span of years. In 1976, Charlie became the President of AT&T with his chairmanship starting in 1979.
As things worked out, I came to know several high level executives including chairmen in the telecommunications industry. But it was my good fortune to know Charlie long before he ascended to the top Bell System job at AT&T. Charlie Brown was the same sort of person in the chairmanship as he was when he was working out in the vineyards of the Bell System. His brain power was unmatched. His affability shielded a steely part of his character which people knew about when he was confronted by untruths or intentional misleading statements.
In the late 1950’s, AT&T called me in to New York to work in labor relations for the Long Lines Department. As the name implies, Long Lines had to do with long distance and international telephone calls. During those years, the AT&T relationship with the Communications Workers of America was something other than a warm one. One cause of the friction was an autocratic, do-as-I-say martinet who ran the Long Lines Department. What flowed from that antagonistic attitude was many grievances and threats of work stoppages. On the union side, intra-union rivalries led to less than stable relations with AT&T, the employer. I suppose one of the reasons for my transfer to New York, had to do with my stint as a local officer and as a national negotiator for CWA from 1945 to 1951. When I arrived in New York, the two sides were locked into one-year contracts which meant that bargaining a new contract was an annual occurrence. There was no real desire to write longer term contracts.
It was in the labor job that Charlie and I got to know each other well. At the time, he was the Assistant to the General Manager for the Central Area of Long Lines with headquarters’ offices in Cincinnati. When bargaining time rolled around, each of the three Assistants to General Managers from the Areas were brought in to New York to serve with me on the AT&T bargaining committee.
There was Al Goebel from White Plains, New York who was a World War II B-20 pilot in the Pacific. From Kansas City came Henry Joyner who taught me a great bit with his Southern charm. Henry was the author of the remark about a grossly disappointed fellow saying, “Don’t you know that he was sorer than a boiled owl.” And then there was Charlie Brown from Cincinnati. It was my pleasure to know all of these men quite well.
Charlie’s presentations in bargaining were always cogent and his debate with Union representatives was always friendly and convincing. He made his points without putting down the union advocate. It was a delight to work with Charlie. During bargaining, there were long periods of preparation and correcting minutes of the previous day, which take place outside the bargaining room. Then there are the inevitable delays caused by the intrusion of other pressing labor problems. So in substance, those of us on the bargaining team spent 10 to 12 hours a day in each others’ company. Some days were longer.
On one occasion, I commented that one presentation by a union representative had a number of split infinitives in it. It was a throw away remark. Charlie Brown asked me to tell him why split infinitives were against the rule. About all I could say was that my English teachers in Missouri were opposed to them and that Time Magazine abhorred them. That was not good enough for old Charlie. Would the Republic cease to exist if split infinitives became the rule of the day? I countered by saying that the Clayton, Missouri English teachers, who were all spinsters, were against them. I too would oppose that evil and wicked influence. This good natured badgering went on for quite a while with old Charlie standing on the side of freedom to use split infinitives wherever it seemed appropriate.
During one year of bargaining, Charlie sat directly opposite a woman from Philadelphia. In those days, the union leadership in Philadelphia was quite openly anti-company. If the company proposed something, the Philadelphia local would automatically reject it. The women in the Traffic Department in Philadelphia actually undertook a campaign to drive their manager, John Hardy, to quit or to seek medical help. The woman who sat opposite from Charlie was from Philadelphia Traffic. She was one of two people representing all Long Lines telephone operators.
This union representative was not a particularly likeable person. From my perspective, she was a difficult person without a saving sense of humor. There was no charm about her at all. Charlie sat next to me. If I wanted to see what Charlie was writing, it would have been easy for me to see. While I had no real interest in Charlie’s notes, the female union representative who sat across from Charlie had a consuming interest in what emerged from Mr. Brown’s pen.
For several days, when we broke for lunch or for dinner, Charlie would tell me that his opposite union member was trying to read what he had written. When we resumed negotiations, she would be at it again. It was easy for me to see that her eyes were trained on whatever Charlie was writing. Why she did this is unknown to me as none of us would ever write down any secret strategy and bring it into the negotiating room.
After several days of having his notes read, Charlie printed an effective message. It was in big, block letters. It read, “CAN YOU READ THIS UPSIDEDOWN?” The Philadelphia note reader was probably surprised by the large block printing, and if I read her reaction correctly, she would have greatly preferred that the word “UPSIDE” be separated from “DOWN”, the final word. A ten letter word makes it difficult for note decipherers to read quickly and discreetly. In any case, after she read and digested Charlie’s note, the Philadelphia translator of Charlie’s notes blushed and appeared quite flustered. For the rest of that bargaining, she made elaborate gestures to tell everyone that she was reading her own notes, not Charlie Brown’s.
I was critical of Charlie because the final word “DOWN” did not have a space before it which caused his translator a great deal of difficulty. Time Magazine and the spinster teachers at Clayton High School would have split those two words. I told Charlie that this transgression was about as bad as his antediluvian views on split infinitives.
All of this happened sometime in the 1950’s. I thought no more about those events at all until, unexpectedly, I had the pleasure of introducing Charlie in February, 1984. That was the occasion of the retirement of Dick Nichols, the Vice President of the Overseas Department. Charlie and Dick came into the business together in 1946. Charlie and Ann Lee, his wife, happened to be in Northern New Jersey that evening and dropped by to bid farewell to Dick Nichols.
A few minutes before the proceedings for Dick’s retirement were to start, I looked up and saw Charlie. This was my first inkling that he was present. He said he was pressed for time, but that he wanted to say a few words in behalf of Dick Nichols. We had a very pleasant conversation and I told Charlie that, with me being the Master of Ceremonies, I would introduce him early in the proceedings so that he could be on his way. I had no notes of any kind, of course, but as we parted, I told Charlie that the proceedings I had in mind would not be marked by great reverence. It was my thought that if Charlie wanted to have no part of the irreverence about to unfold, he would say so. As I knew he would, in reference to the irreverence of the occasion, Charlie said simply, “To bring it on.”
Many of the people in the audience of about 500 people knew nothing about Charlie Brown. It was clear that many people would have expected the Chairman of the great AT&T Corporation to be a stuffy sort of person. As the MC, it was my job to disabuse them of any such notion.
So I set out to tell the audience what sort of fellow Charlie was. In the process of Charlie’s introduction, the split infinitives story and the Philadelphia woman who read Charlie’s notes were recounted. I described the note pilferer as probably the most beautiful creature since Lillie Langtry or Marilyn Monroe. The audience was told how it pained me deeply to see this poor, frail, innocent creature brought down to earth by Charlie’s sign, “Can you read this upsidedown?” What Charlie and I knew, was that the female who read his notes was mean, arrogant, and weighed about 180 pounds. But that is absolutely no reason whatsoever to let little facts like this disrupt an epic tale.
By this time, the laughter in the audience was pretty strong and the audience wanted to see what this Chairman of the Board had to say about me. It took no time to find out as Charlie pointed to my perceived failings in great detail. The audience was close to rolling in the aisles as he spoke. When Charlie finished his remarks, he observed that, “You are going to have a wonderful evening tonight, if Carr doesn’t screw it up.”
My objective was achieved. The audience saw a happy Charlie Brown who could relate to them. Charlie’s performance, obviously without notes, was a tour de force. In spite of the slings and arrows aimed at me, the evening was a huge success which was set up by Charlie’s appearance.
Unfortunately, that dinner in February, 1984, was the last time I ever had the pleasure to shake Charlie’s hand. In September, 1984, I took early retirement and left the business after 42 years.
But before I left, say around June 1984, we had an opportunity to work together again. There was an Italian restaurateur in the Capital Hill district in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, his name and the name of his restaurant have long since escaped me. In any event, he longed to be a major player in advertising and in international telecommunications. To that end, he had purchased a share of an advertising agency, probably in Rome. And he had acquired an interest in ITALTEL, which was spun off by our long term correspondent in Italy, called ITALCABLE. In the AT&T Company, we had nothing to do with ITALTEL, which was only vaguely related to our correspondent, ITALCABLE.
The long and the short of it is that around February, 1984, the owner of the Washington restaurant who wanted to be a major player in advertising and in international telecommunications called me to place some demands on me. Finding me was an easy thing to do as the Italians knew who I was and advertising agency people in this country knew me very well.
At the time, AT&T had enjoyed a 75 year relationship with the N. W. Ayer advertising organization in New York. The picture attached is the celebration given by N. W. Ayer to mark this long association. It came from Howard Davis, Vice President of Ayer. When the Washington entrepreneur called, there was no incentive for AT&T to take advertising work away from N. W. Ayer and give it to his agency. He should have paid more attention to his calamari sauce and stayed out of unfamiliar occupations.
This Washington fellow called me a few times and demanded to know when we would give advertising work to his agency so that calling to Italy would increase to his benefit in his new venture with ITALTEL. These were not friendly calls, at all. They were demands.
I wanted to know a little more about his restaurant in Washington. For nearly four years, my occupation was as a lobbyist working out of the AT&T Washington office. It was located on “K” Street in the heart of the capital lobbying district. As a lobbyist, it was required that figures in government and in other influential businesses be entertained, mainly at lunches and dinners. The restaurant under discussion had never come to my attention, in spite of the fact that my tastes lean heavily to the Italian cuisine.
So some of my old friends in the Washington office were called with my request that they visit the restaurant owned by the caller who was making demands on me and on AT&T. Their report was discouraging. In the first place, his restaurant was located away from the hotels and restaurants on Connecticut Avenue, in an area that was described as heading toward a high crime rating. One of my male friends who visited the place reported that he was uncomfortable with all the male hangers- on gathered around the bar. And finally, my reports said the food ranged from barely acceptable to not acceptable at all. It seemed to me that the Washington caller represented elements that had no place with the AT&T Corporation.
So not long after in the next call from Washington, I told the caller we would not have any business to give him. I did not tell him to go to hell, but my polite, business language could be read in no other way. As the Washington demand caller started to end the conversation, he told me that my actions “would have consequences.” I thought those were throw away lines after the Washington caller had finished his business with me.
Having heard nothing from our caller in Washington for about a month or more, the demands he made were largely put out of my mind. One day in May or June of 1984, my phone rang with Charlie Brown on the line. Charlie came directly to me, ignoring all the Vice Presidential brass hovering above me.
His first words were, “Ed, why is Al d’Amato pissed off at you?” Of course, I was temporarily taken aback, but then I told Charlie something like, “If you mean the Senator who sang ‘Old McDonald had a farm’ on the Senate floor during a filibuster, I have never had the opportunity to meet him.” So I had no idea why he was angry with me.
The long and the short of it is that the Washington caller who told me that there would be consequences, had told the Senator from New York, Al D’Amato, that he was being mistreated by an AT&T employee. Namely me. D’Amato knew exactly what to do. He called Charlie Brown to have Charlie straighten me out.
After the first exchanges, it was possible for me to explain to Charlie what had happened. I told him that I had told the demander from Washington that the answer was “no.” That must have offended the Washington restaurant owner, so I suppose he unloaded on Senator D’Amato.
In our discussion, Charlie made it clear that he had a tricky job to deal with an important figure in the Senate from New York. There were one or two more calls from Charlie in June. In the end, D’Amato was told the answer was “no.” I never had any doubt that Charlie would back me up even if an important Senator from New York was angry with me.
Those conversations were the last I ever had with my friend, Charlie.
Charlie had a long and a distinguished career. I am glad that he was my friend. There was no disguising the fact that he had a monumental intellect, but on no occasion have I ever seen Charlie use that intellect to put someone down. He had, as I have said, a steely resolve in his character, but on no occasion had anyone ever seen that steely resolve be used to bully anyone. It was not in Charlie’s character to threaten or brow-beat anyone when he was the Chairman of AT&T.
The sum and the substance of this matter is that Charlie Brown was a gentleman’s gentleman. I can think of no higher praise than that. The fact that he was my friend is simply a bonus for me.
I know that Charlie died this week. It is painful for all of us to acknowledge that fact. I also know that he was a man I will never forget.
E. E. CARR
November 15, 2003
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Seems like an excellent guy who didn’t let power go to his head. Pop was lucky to know him! Also, it’s surprising to me to learn that ol’ Howard Davis was a VP at Ayer — he shows up in tons of essays but for some reason that fact escaped me until now.