The government had been on Bell's case for a long time. There is a book published in 1941, "The Bell Telephone System" by Arthur W. Page, in which he, a Bell insider, tells all the virtues of the telephone system being a regulated monopoly rather than a competitive bunch of companies. He complains a lot about the government back then having a grudge against the Bell System. There was a paper published in a legal journal after the breakup titled "Is the Third Time the Charm? A Comparison of the Government's Major Antitrust Settlements with AT&T This Century" (by Geoffrey M. Peters, Seton Hall Law Review, 1985, p. 252.) This discusses the circa 1920 case, the case that ended in the 1956 consent decree, and the case that Judge Greene handled. I believe the first of these dealt with the Bell System trying to drive the independent telcos out of business and acquire them.
jhhaynes at earthlink dot net