Aeagle.114
net.general
utzoo!duke!mhtsa!eagle!wdr
Wed Jun  3 13:12:46 1981
What if?
Let us have a moment of silence, to honor the wisdom and foresight
of the leaders at AT&T who made the following decision:

  "ARPA approached AT&T in the early 1970's to see if AT&T would be
  interested in taking over part of the ARPANET and offering a public
  packet switched service, but AT&T declined."

     - L. G. Roberts, "The Evolution of Packet Switching,"
       IEEE Proceedings, Nov. 1978, 66:11, pp. 1307-1313.
       [p. 1310, middle of column 1]