Genius on Hold Page #7

I want you to take me

to see your dad every week

and I said,

well, I'll, I'll take you but

I'm not going to see him.

I didn't see him the whole

time he was locked up.

Not one time.

With their many hours on

national television

in pursuit of mobsters,

Senators McClellen

and Kefauver

become national media

celebrities.

It gets down to

personalities,

now I didn't know.

It's not, uh, the Senator

McClellen, is it?

Senator Kefauver becomes

the running mate

with Adlai Stevenson

in the 1956 election

for the presidency.

It's, you know, Valachi kind

of drops off the radar.

I'm not even quite sure what

happened.

I know that the man is dead,

you know, of natural causes.

I don't know what the actual

advantages

were bestowed on Valachi.

Uh, he was not prosecuted

for murder,

which he could have been,

uh, and he again just goes

off the radar.

Uh, he was unimportant

prior to him being brought

before the committee and

returned to his obscurity

after the committee

hearings.

Walter Shaw returns home

from prison to find his son

has changed dramatically.

He says, well I've been

locked up for nine months

you didn't even

come see me.

He says, why?

Father and son cannot

reconcile.

He says, I guess you blame

me for all this, huh, Thiel?

I said, no I blame you

for lying to me.

We were all upset about

what was happening

to my, our family and to my

dad in particular

and he's all of a sudden

infamous.

His name is being said over

the news stations

but it's not in a way that we

ever dreamed.

After Walter's release

from jail,

he seeks financial partners

to help fund his inventions.

His struggles continue.

They had bankrupted

the company

that had the patents

cause he transferred them

into the, into the company.

That was a way of not

paying the, the royalties.

They could still manufacture,

still market,

still sell the idea,

and trash the,

the royalty contract.

And I told my dad, I says,

you're, you're just not

gonna let these people

just do what they want.

He says, well what do you

want me to do?

And I said, well, what do you

think Archie would do?

What do you think any

of those guys would do?

He says, I don't think

the way they do, Thiel.

I said, well,

if you want their respect

you gotta put 'em on ice.

And he says, I don't think

that way.

So I told him. I says, well

then,

that's where me and you

divide, cause I would.

You would?

I said, in a minute.

I wouldn't blink an eye.

Not a hesitation.

I wouldn't even

think about it.

I defend my family

at all cost.

He said, well,

I, I don't think that way.

We don't have the same,

uh, blood running through

our veins then.

His family is disillusioned.

Frightened.

It is more than they

bargained for.

My brother was talking

on the phone.

I was standing outside the

room and I came in

because I heard his voice...

get higher and higher and

angrier and angrier

and upset and just,

just in turmoil

and took the receiver

and he's telling,

saying, "No, no, no" and...

he starts beating

his own head

with the headset

of the phone

and he's slamming

his head with it...

hard, hard, hard...

and he starts

to go down to the floor

cause he's beating himself

in the head.

Beating so hard

that he's losing his balance

and he's going down

to the floor.

Once Thiel gets

out of the hospital,

it isn't long

before he goes hunting

for Archie Gianunzio.

Knowing Archie is

connected,

Thiel uses him as his back

door into organized crime.

Over the coming years,

Walter Shaw

continues inventing with

hopes of finding backers.

Thiel seeks solace

in revenge.

He begins to work his way

up the crime ladder,

working for associates

of Archie Gianunzio.

At first he does deliveries

for the mob.

He learns the business.

He resented the rich,

and that resentment would

grow to a point where

he lost his, his uh.

sensibilities about...

what was right and wrong,

but for him, anger took over.

In 1956, a company

named Hush-A-Phone

attaches their equipment

to Bell lines.

They are halted immediately

and charges are filed

for illegal attachment.

Well the Hush-A-Phone

case was very important

for competitive telephony

because

it cracked the door open

for attachment of

non-Western Electric

or non-Bell devices to

AT&T's telephone network.

The courts rule against Bell.

Bell Telephone Tariffs

on the Hush-A-Phone device

are unwarranted

interference

with telephone subscriber's

right to use his telephone

in ways which

are privately beneficial

without being detrimental.

In 1968,

Carterfone attaches

their equipment

to Bell telephone lines.

Once again,

Bell halts their business

and charges are filed

stating Carterfone illegally

attached to their lines.

Carterfone decision was

very important in 1968.

It opened the door a little bit

wider for competition

with the Bell system.

Uh, they had already

become the largest

monopoly, largest

corporation in the world.

So Carterfone was an

acoustically coupled device

for the purposes

of transmitting data

over a telephone network.

So it was a device that you

would take a handset

and set it inside of it

and you could transmit

and receive

via a device that, uh,

touched the network,

but without any electrical

connection.

By the 70s, uh, the courts

had become impatient

with these big monopolies

and again,

the FCC upheld AT& on Carterfone

and the courts overturned,

uh, the FCC and said,

this is ridiculous.

You've got to allow

foreign attachments

onto the network.

Both courts handed

down decisions

in favor of the defendants,

stating that they may attach

equipment

to the Bell telephone lines

as long as attachments were

not damaging Bells service.

These cases are watershed

moments and a turning point

for telecommunications

in America.

But in 1972, they do not help

Walter Shaw.

In Florida, Shaw makes

another mistake.

This time he uses

Bell phonelines

to test a tone generator.

Bell's own internal

security force

and is watching Shaw

and listening.

He is arrested again.

My dad had an uncanny

ability to understand...

the telephone system.

He was a threat. He was a

threat to the day he died.

During his trial,

Walter's lawyer argues that

Bell has a vendetta

against his client.

Bell argues that

he made phone calls

bouncing off Bell lines.

They file charges against

him

for theft of four

telephone calls

and for illegal attachment.

Shaw reiterates to the court

that he was only testing

his equipment.

His objection falls

on deaf ears.

Walter Shaw is sentenced to

four years in federal prison.

It amounts to one year

in prison

for each alleged phone call.

In the mean time, with

Archie Gianunzio's help,

his son, Thiel, continues

to move up the ladder

of organized crime.

So we can, we can

completely understand.

Not agree with it

necessarily,

but understand

why individuals living in a,

uh, in depressed economic

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