Dreamers and Deceivers (7 page)

Having created massive consumer demand, and with his nervous stockholders and dealerships awaiting a payoff on their investments, Sarnoff had just canceled millions of dollars in manufacturing orders for a product he considered too flawed to produce.

He was known as a man with all the answers, but for once David Sarnoff had no idea what to do next.

“Why not call Armstrong?” his secretary asked.

This bright young woman, Marion MacInnes, had already pulled Sarnoff’s fat from the fire on more than one occasion. She was sitting at her desk, looking dreamily at a photograph of Howard Armstrong—the very picture that had gotten him banned from the corporate premises. The photo showed the still-boyish inventor balanced on the peak of the 450-foot antenna atop the RCA building at 30 Rockefeller Center. When the papers ran the shot, the insurance guys went apoplectic and probably would have had Armstrong arrested if Sarnoff hadn’t intervened.

Armstrong—now that wasn’t such a bad idea.

“Get him up here,” Sarnoff said, “and alert security to let him through. But so help me, Marion, if he climbs that tower again, genius or not, he’s going to spend the night in jail.”

The two men met on the roof of the building, far from the prying eyes of the fretting RCA executives. As Armstrong pored over the production schematics for the Radiola, he and Sarnoff had a few quiet minutes to reminisce.

“I never got a chance to apologize to you,” Armstrong said.

“For what?”

“For selling the rights to the superheterodyne to Westinghouse. I didn’t want to leave you out, but I couldn’t wait. I needed the money for the lawyers.”

“I was pretty hot about that for a while,” Sarnoff admitted, “but all’s forgiven. Let’s just say that deals were made, and I made sure I came out on top. Now I’ve got Westinghouse and GE right where I want them. AT&T is even trying to stick their nose into this business, but we’re holding them off as well.” He would have gone on, but as he watched Armstrong for a few moments more, he realized that his old friend really had no capacity for the nuance of this sort of war. “You’re still fighting de Forest, then, on regeneration? How long has that been going on?”

“Almost ten years now. I won against him in ’21, and then he appealed and now I’m set to win again. When that verdict comes down I’m going to run up a flag with my patent number on it, big enough that he can see it from his house on the Hudson.”

“Why not just drop it? Settle, and move on?”

“He’s sworn he’ll never pay damages to me until he’s lost in the highest court in the land.”

“Then waive damages and take your win. Make de Forest buy a license if he wants to use your work. That’ll burn him up.”

“There are some things a man can’t compromise on. It’s not only the money I’m owed. You’ve heard what he says about me to any hack reporter who’ll listen. He calls me a thief.”

“You’re in good company. You should hear some of the mud he slings about Marconi, though being an eyewitness, I can confirm that some of the more lurid tales of his appetite for the ladies are absolutely true.”

“Well, that’s certainly more than I ever wanted to know about Marconi’s love life.”

“Seriously though, Howard, as a friend, you should think hard about cutting your losses with this de Forest business. Put it behind you.”

“I can’t give it up, David. It’s my reputation at stake.”

“Ten years,” Sarnoff sighed. “It’s a crime, that’s what it is.” He could see a change come over Armstrong as he spoke of the case—the constant pressure must have been tearing him down, bit by bit. “Well, let’s
hope old Lee does as bad a job before the Supreme Court as he does at reporting the news. Remember the night when he called the 1916 presidential election?
‘Breaking news! Charles Evans Hughes beats Woodrow Wilson!’
He splashed that scoop all over the tri-state area, and then he stuck by it for almost a week.”

Armstrong smiled, but there was no joy in it. Sarnoff thought it probably best to change the subject.

“Speaking of money,” Sarnoff continued, “I’m sitting on orders for one hundred thousand radio sets, and I don’t have a single one to deliver. Do you think you can help me with that?”

Howard Armstrong put the drawings aside.

“I’ll tell you what. If I can do it, I want a signed letter on your stationery, giving me permanent permission to climb that antenna tower behind us any damned time I want.”

“I’ll do better than that,” Sarnoff said. “I’ve got a lovely young woman downstairs, right outside my office, who’s got a crush on you to beat the band. You give me the Radiola, and I’ll introduce you to her.”

This time Armstrong’s smile was genuine. He held out his hand, and they shook on it.

“And there’s one other thing I want you to start thinking about,” Sarnoff said. “I was listening to our stations the other night, during that big rain, and the static was awful. From March until October we have to print a damned weather report right next to the program listings in the paper so people can see if the storms will wipe out their reception. You find me a way to eliminate that noise, clean up our signal regardless of the weather, and we’ll own this industry for the next fifty years.”

“I’ll give it some thought.”

“And Howard, listen to me,” Sarnoff said. His tone was serious. “It’s a bitter world we’re operating in. There are empires at stake, and that’s much bigger than you and me. That’s bigger than friendship. This suit with de Forest? You must know he’s got AT&T behind him now. You can’t win alone anymore. The age of the independent inventor is over and done. You’ve strayed in the past and I understand why. But if you stick with me, you’ll own the future.”

“I won’t believe that, David. I think the world of you, but I’ll never
be a company man. You’ve got big ideas, I know, but I’ve got a few of my own.”

Sarnoff nodded. “I’ve heard that assistant of yours call you ‘the Major.’ That’s from the war, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, around here they call me ‘the General.’ I’m going to be running this place before you know it, and RCA is only the beginning. And Howard?”

“Yeah?”

Sarnoff put a hand on his old friend’s shoulder.

“You mustn’t ever forget that a general outranks a major.”

1934

The ten years that followed ushered in a world of change.

There were times of happiness greater than Howard Armstrong had ever known. He’d found his one true love in Sarnoff’s assistant, Marion MacInnes, and after a blissful courtship they’d been married. Together with Harry Houck, Armstrong had solved the mass production problems and David Sarnoff had sold his hundred thousand receivers, and then many hundreds of thousands more.

With eighteen thousand shares of company stock as his reward, Armstrong had become the largest single shareholder in RCA. But the Depression took its toll. Stock that had been worth $572 per share in 1929 had plummeted to just $12.25 by 1933.

As an industry, radio was coming into its own. They were already calling it the “Golden Age of Broadcasting.” Even as unemployment soared, people who struggled to buy food and pay the rent never missed a payment on their radio sets. It was a gathering place for the troubled nation. The airwaves were filled with popular music, news, and sporting events, as well as comedy and drama from the greatest stars of the day. Even the president regularly went on the air to reassure his fellow Americans that happy days would soon be here again.

It certainly didn’t seem that way to Howard Armstrong.

By then
de Forest vs. Armstrong
had been heard by a dozen courts, with wins, losses and stalemates claimed by both litigants. After all this, the Supreme Court of the United States had just issued its decision on the matter.

Through what could only be explained as a complete misunderstanding of the technical foundation of the case, the court had ruled against Edwin Howard Armstrong.

Finally, after almost twenty years, the verdict of history was now etched in stone: Lee de Forest had won. Armstrong was a thief.

May 29, 1934

Howard Armstrong stood in the wings awaiting his introduction at an annual meeting of the Institute of Radio Engineers.

He’d been invited to give that night’s keynote speech long before the Supreme Court’s decision had come down. It was a standing-room-only crowd, and by now most everyone in the audience knew of the ruling.

Though Armstrong dreaded yet another round of public humiliation, he had never broken a commitment to his peers. He was sure, however, that his planned presentation on frequency modulation would now be inappropriate to deliver. He would keep his notes in his pocket. There was only one thing he needed to say.

As he took to the stage the crowd was mostly silent.

“My friends,” Armstrong began, “and my colleagues. As you may be aware, my long fight with Mr. de Forest has finally come to a close. It has been the longest such case thus far in American history, and it was brought to determine who is the rightful inventor of regeneration. The verdict of the high court has now been rendered, and it was not the outcome that I’d hoped to see.”

He could feel a twitching begin in his neck, and he held a grip on the podium to try to keep it down.

“In 1917, this organization saw fit to award to me its Medal of Honor for the discovery of that very principle. I will never forget that night. To me it seems like only yesterday, and yet it was so long ago.”

Emotion rose into his throat and took hold there. Only a few more words needed to be spoken, and he prayed he could deliver them.

“With the Supreme Court’s decision, I no longer have a right to the honor that you so graciously bestowed upon me.” He took the small engraved plaque from his coat pocket and placed it on the table beside him. “I only wish—”

A single shout of “No!” arose from the back of the auditorium.

Another man yelled out, “It’s yours, Howard, and we all know it!”

“My friends,” Armstrong began again, but his voice failed him. He felt the first tears begin trailing down his face.

Others in the audience started to join in the vocal protest. Applause began slowly and then spread throughout the room until the roar of it was ringing in his ears. The engineers were coming to their feet in an ovation that seemed as if it would never end. They were cheering and chanting his name, and then one of them ran up onto the stage and put Howard Armstrong’s treasured award right back into his hands.

•  •  •

When he got home from the meeting he told Marion all about it, and the two stayed up most of the night talking about the future. She’d been by his side through virtually every trial and tribulation, lending him her strength, and he loved her more every single day.

By morning, for the first time in years, the road ahead seemed bright.

Ever since David Sarnoff had asked him to tackle the static problem, Armstrong had been quietly at work. The challenge had been monumental, but now the prototype was nearly done—and wide-band frequency modulation would be an invention all his own that no man alive could ever dispute. Outside his wife and Harry Houck, only Sarnoff, now the president of RCA, had been privy to the progress so far. Finally, it was ready to be announced.

Armstrong wrote in his journal that morning:

An era as new and distinct in the radio art as that of regeneration is now upon us. After ten years of eclipse, my star is rising again.

A few sleepless days and nights later, a team of company engineers assembled in Armstrong’s temporary lab at RCA headquarters.

Howard turned on the latest model of the Radiola and then tuned in a signal until the sound was as clear as he could make it. There was music playing, a classical piece, exhibiting the thin, tinny audio of a typical program of the day.

“There are two transmitters upstairs,” Armstrong said. “One is broadcasting with yesterday’s technology, and that’s what you’re hearing now. Watch, and listen.”

Armstrong flipped a switch near him and a spark generator began spitting bright white arcs of electricity across its gap. The radio signal was immediately overwhelmed by interference and the program disappeared into the hiss.

With a sweeping gesture, Howard Armstrong then switched the output to the new FM receiver right beside him.

The same orchestra music filled the room, but the difference was breathtaking. For minutes they all listened in utter fascination—for the first time, a broadcast signal carried the full audio spectrum discernible to the human ear. And despite the static generator that was still going strong, the reception was so pure and clear that one could hear the whisper-quiet sound of the violinist turning his pages of music.

When the demonstration was over, David Sarnoff dismissed his team of engineers to the next room and took Armstrong aside.

“Well, you’ve done it again, Howard,” he said. “This FM business, it’s going to change everything one day.”

“One day?” Armstrong replied. “It’s changed everything already, starting
today
.”

“Let’s sit down over here,” Sarnoff said. When they arrived at the table, Armstrong saw what looked like a corporate contract was already waiting for them. “This is an agreement between you and RCA. Among other things it entitles you to a significant share of the profits that might come from your work here.”

Armstrong began to read. His enthusiasm began to leave him, though, before he’d even gotten halfway through.

“This transfers all my patents for FM over to your company.”

“That’s right. You and I will always know who invented it, but to the rest of the world, FM will belong to RCA. And that’s not all.”

“What else?”

“I’m not going to announce these results,” Sarnoff said, “and neither will you. Nothing you showed us here today will be made public.”

“What do you mean? You said this was another revolution—”

“And it is, but we’re not ready for it yet. We’ve only just gotten AM into widespread acceptance. I’ve got millions of radio sets out there in the market, and tens of millions more on the production line. That gear would all be obsolete, not to mention the stations and broadcasters who’d all have to replace their equipment overnight. Once people hear your new system, they’d never want to listen to AM radio again.”