Business: The Case of the Century

On the last working day of the Johnson Administration in January 1969, the Justice Department filed suit against International Business Machines, accusing it of monopolizing the "general purpose" computer business. Specifically, IBM was charged with trying to force customers to buy entire IBM systems for commercial use, and with keeping competitors out of the market. A decade later U.S. vs. IBM is still droning on, a costly monument to the law's delay. The frustrating case, Yale Professor Robert Bork told TIME'S conference, is the antitrust division's "Viet Nam." Thomas Barr, the Cravath, Swaine & Moore attorney who is leading the IBM...