Cold War history [Telecom]

The Bell System was a major participant in defense projects during that era. An special AT&T unit managed Sandia labs which made weapons. In the 1960s dissidents bought stock in AT&T and demanded that Bell cease from such work (the protests didn't work). The US Dept of Defense was opposed to Divesture because it feared a weakened Bell System would not be able to meet their needs.

Whether we like it or not, Cold War spending was responsible for a great many advances in communication and computer technology. The nuclear research labs (Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore) and the aerospace missile contractors had the money to fund the development of the ever bigger and more powerful super-computers. A major development of real-time computer processing occured from the SAGE air defense program.

Domestic products benefited from the 'trickle down' of military work.

One of the Bell Labs history series covers defense projects.

Some consumer companies became defense contractors as well. RCA originally made phonographs, radios, records, and broadcast transmitters and equipment. During the Cold War their big growth, despite television, was in defense electronics. As time went on RCA got out of most consumer and broadcaster products.

One of the most amazing things developed was the Rolamite bearing which was acclaimed to be the 20th Century's most significant advance in mechanics. The December 1967 Scientific American blurb describing it and its discovery at Sandia Labs, operated by Western Electric, is here:

It was originally used as a 100% reliable trigger for nukes and presently is found at the heart of air bag deployment systems and many ESA space applications.

My mirrored Rolamite application page (including the original articles about it) is here:

I really should update those pages (it's been years) but there is enough material there to keep anyone occupied for hours. :-)