I would never have written this book had it not been for my friend Andrew Heiskell, retired chairman of Time Inc. When I returned from my ambassadorship to Moscow in 1981, Andrew began urging me to tell my story, and it was Andrew who, six years later, escorted me to Fortune magazine and introduced me to Marshall Loeb, the managing editor, and to my eventual coauthor Peter Petre. Throughout a long and demanding project, Andrew remained an important source of encouragement, and I hope the final product gives him satisfaction.
John Akers, IBM’s chairman, backed this project with understanding and generosity. He put the IBM archive at our disposal, granted access to company personnel, and most important, enabled us to call on the talents of Richard Wight, retired director of corporate communications. Dick’s research has been invaluable. We have drawn freely on the facts and insights in two unpublished works of IBM history he has written in recent years, and to the extent that this memoir contributes to the story of American business, Dick Wight deserves much of the credit.
In some respects, this book began in the pages of Fortune, in which the first product of my collaboration with Peter Petre, a 1987 article, appeared. Marshall Loeb gave our book enthusiastic support, granting Peter a generous leave of absence, and then patiently extending it when the project took longer than expected. The imprint of Mr. Loeb’s editorial imagination appears on the cover of this volume: he gave us the title Father, Son & Co.
This book does not pretend to be a comprehensive history of the computer industry, or IBM, or even of the Watson family. But it would have been much less complete without the friends and colleagues who helped reconstruct the events we describe. As I worked on the project I turned back to some of those I’d depended on at IBM. In particular, I want to thank six of my former executive assistants who later went on to become officers of the company: Dean McKay, who did masterful work in shaping IBM’s corporate image through design; Bob Hubner, one of the most effective and empathetic managers I ever met; Spike Beitzel, a particularly shrewd adviser; Dean Phypers, my confidant in the 1960s when IBM was under enormous strain; Jane Cahill Pfeiffer, who saw me through the difficult year in which I had a heart attack; and David McKinney, who aided me in the sometimes painful process of disengaging from the business.
I was fortunate to have had first-rate associates outside IBM, as well. When I went to Washington to work for President Carter, Bill Jackson, executive director of the General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament, was immensely helpful in teaching me the ropes. During my ambassadorship in Moscow, when the Afghanistan crisis broke, I’d have been lost without Mark Garrison, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy. Both men dug into their files and contributed to this book.
Many friends and former colleagues took time to sit for interviews, and some shared writings of their own. They include James Birkenstock, Tina Brandt, Harold Brown, Richard Bullen, Frank Cary, Charles De Carlo, F. L. Dunn, Keith Funston, Jean McEwen Hughes, John J. Kenney, Burke Marshall, H. Wisner Miller, John Opel, Clair Vough, Barney Wiegard, and Dan Wright. Also James Brown Jr., Isabelle Markwald Bushnell, Jeannette Cammen, Richard Day, Robert Galvin, Robert German, Arthur Krim, Eleanor Lazarus, Molly Noyes, Senator Charles Percy, James Robison, Tyge Rothe, Eunice Shriver, Erma Swenson, Edwin Thorne, and Strobe Talbott. I also want to thank the people of the IBM archive—Barbara Henninger, Donald Kenney, John Maloney, and Robert Pokorak, in particular. The staff of IBM’s secretary assembled personnel information we requested, and the staff of the comptroller provided financial data. Finally, Robert Djurdjevic and Bro Uttal provided my coauthor with independent perspectives on the computer industry.
Publishing was an unfamiliar world when I started this project. I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have had the help of our agent, Kathy Robbins. She is tactful, attentive, and as smart a businessperson as I’ve ever known. Linda Grey, our publisher, understood from the very beginning exactly what the book was meant to be, and has been a great source of encouragement. Our editor, Beverly Lewis, worked hard to give the text its final polish. A number of veteran journalists assisted us at various stages and in various ways: Louis Banks and John McDonald with editorial advice; Lorraine Carson, George McNeill, Vicki Sufian, Carolyn Tasker, and Linda Williams with research; and Katherine Bourbeau with photo research. We were also fortunate to have had the logistical help of Diane Chiquette, Elizabeth Corrigan, Kim Dramer, Alicia Hill, Jean Kidd, and Ellen Miller.
Two families supported the book. Peter Petre’s wife, Ann Banks, is a gifted writer who edited our earliest drafts and gave important advice all along the way. My own Olive, who has backed me loyally in everything I’ve done for the past forty-eight years, willingly put up with even this project. My sister, Helen Buckner, gave us wonderful reminiscences of Dad and of scrapes she saw me get into as a boy; and my eldest daughter, Jeannette Sanger, contributed funny, revealing stories about growing up in our household. Finally, I’d like to make a special acknowledgment to my grandson, Thomas William Watson, whom everyone knows as Willy. He has been a wonderful companion to me during voyages to the Arctic and Antarctic, and I hope he’ll find in these pages a few stories he hasn’t already heard during our long nights at sea.