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In 1978 Greene took over the Justice Department's suit to break up A T & T. In a manner that some decried as autocratic, Greene fought off Government requests for delays, including one that would have had Congress settle the matter through legislation. "Bizarre" was the judge's crisp response. In January 1982 Bell executives and Assistant Attorney General William Baxter reached an out-of-court settlement. That deal eventually saw the world's largest company divided into the "new" AT&T, which will provide long-distance of service and be able to enter unregulated fields of computers and telecommunications, and seven regional operating companies, which will supply local phone service.
It was Greene who ruled on the multitude of details that gave the accord its final form. Says he: "There would be nights when I would wake up and couldn't get back to sleep. So I would go downstairs and write. The staff had a pool going on how many pages of typing I would bring in here in the morning."
Born Heinz Grünhaus in what is now East Germany, Greene and his parents fled the Nazis in 1939, going to Belgium, France and Spain before the U.S. He returned to Europe in 1945 as a staff sergeant in Army Intelligence. Greene studied law at George Washington University, graduating first in his night-school class while also working full time for the Justice Department.
Greene's link with the Justice Department proved fruitful. In late 1957 Congress created the Civil Rights Division, and Greene became the first head of the appeals and research section. He supervised the drafting of legislation that became the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In that year, Lyndon Johnson named Greene to be a judge (later chief judge) in the District of Columbia's local court system.
Some critics, including top AT&T officials, complain that Greene's role in the breakup of the Bell System was a classic example of excessive judicial power. Here was one appointed official deciding virtually by himself how the U.S. phone system would operate. Greene argues that he was giving substance to the deliberately vague language of antitrust laws. Says he: "Judges cannot be afraid to exercise their legitimate role."
Greene has also been a participant in the telecommunications revolution. Last month, like thousands of other Americans, he went out and bought new telephones for his home.