Partial transcript of tape recording made 25 December 1990 at 973 Paulsboro Drive, Rockville, Maryland; K is Frank Kenneth DeVoe, M is Martha DeVoe, H is Howard DeVoe.
K: Well, the Bell Labs put in a big plug for me.
M: How did they know about you?
K: Well, my number came up, I think . . . come in and see them, so they got me exempted. I was indispensable.
M: You came up for the draft, you mean?
. . .
H: Well, when did you start in at the Bell Labs? Was that '41, or '42?
M: I thought you started right in the beginning of the war.
K: Well, it was early on. I was working out in the field . . . I got another call: "How would you like to work for the Bell Telephone Laboratories?" "Well, what is it?" They were looking for someone to write specifications. . . . They sent me over to the Bell Telephone Laboratories. I'm waiting in the office there to be interviewed --
H: This is not Murray Hill [New Jersey]?
K: No, this is West Street, it's called West Street, these are Greenwich Village, they're right on the river. They're a big seven-story building, just crammed full --
M: Is it still there?
K: I suppose so . . . eventually it was sold, artists are living in it and working in it -- an art colony. Anyway, I was waiting there when I went inside, so "Well, there's been a change here, we've just had an emergency call." They needed somebody who was an engineer and can do a different kind of work. So he said "I'm going to send you up to the fella who has this job," and I went out and talked to him, and he was satisfied and I was satisfied at what I heard, and it was certainly I though better than writing specifications.
M: You would have been good at specifications, though.
K: Yeah. Anyway, this was much more exciting. Really exciting. It was sort of in tune with what was going on. But the __ of the war, my boss wanted me -- he wanted to find me another job in the Bell Labs in New Jersey. So, you may remember we went over there one Sunday . . . Howard and Bob were dead against it, because . . . you know, the high school, and we didn't see any point in it. . . . Anyway, I went back to my boss and told him no, and he said "Well, okay, I have a good friend in the Purchasing Division of Western Electric. You're crazy to go back to your old job, because you're looking you're going to lose a lot of money." See, I'd been given good raises during the war period . . . and the telephone people were not given any raises . . . and I'd have to go back to the wage I left them . . . And then it came out that the Laboratories made a decision: "We've got twenty thousand people here, and we've got to get it down to ten thousand. So we're not going to take any more people on." . . .
M: Well, he started in Western Electric.
K: Which is quite an adventure too.