The largest communications deal in American history might never have come to pass last week if Bell Atlantic chairman Raymond Smith and Tele-Communications Inc. president and chief executive officer John Malone had not got stuck on a boat off the coast of Maine. The merger talks were going nowhere that August afternoon when the two men decided to head back to shore, only to find that the anchor of Malone's 70-ft. sailboat had snagged an underwater power line. While divers spent two hours cutting the boat free, Smith and Malone had little choice but to continue trying to unsnarl the deal....
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