City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics

A CRITICAL INSIGHT 55
the film. Todd wanted a better, cheaper system, ‘‘Cinerama out of one hole.’’
The night after This Is Cinerama opened, he asked his son Michael Todd, Jr.,
to find the ‘‘Einstein of optics.’’ The trail led to Brian O’Brien. 53
O’Brien didn’t know what to make of the promoter, who called insistently,
typically in late evening. He finally agreed to meet Todd, who chartered a
plane to Rochester and explained what he wanted. When O’Brien said such
a system was probably possible, Todd tried to hire him. The physicist demurred;
he thought the job belonged at a big optical company. After three
weeks of calls failed to persuade O’Brien, Todd chartered a plane to meet with
O’Brien and Walter Stewart, the president of American Optical, in Southbridge.
After shaking hands, Todd laid a certified check for $60,000 on Stewart’s
desk and said, ‘‘Let’s talk business.’’ 54
The result was a joint venture called Todd-AO. American Optical supplied
optical designers, engineers, and manufacturing expertise. Todd applied his
considerable persuasive powers to secure film rights to the Broadway musical
Oklahoma!, the first time Rogers and Hammerstein allowed anyone to film one
of their shows. It seemed a golden opportunity to make money and rub shoulders
with the rich and famous. Todd-AO preempted O’Brien’s working hours,
leaving little time to establish a research division. The company put its best
engineers on the project, where they worked at a frantic pace.
The little project on guiding light in glass fibers couldn’t compete with the
movie business. Except for asking company lawyers to work on a patent,
O’Brien almost forgot about fiber optics in the months after he arrived in
Southbridge. Nothing seemed urgent; he expected van Heel to warn him in
plenty of time of any developments that might affect the patents.
Few people realized something else was draining O’Brien’s tremendous personal
energy. His wife of 30 years, Ethel, was seriously ill and dying. 55
A Controversy over Publication
In the midst of this chaos, van Heel’s letter arrived in early May 1953, announcing
his plans to publish on image transmission through clad fibers. 56
The fate of that crucial document is unclear. Although O’Brien was notorious
for not replying to letters, van Heel’s should have been an exception. Perhaps
the letter never reached O’Brien’s attention. Perhaps O’Brien saw it, asked
military clearance to respond, and never got a reply. Perhaps he set it aside
for a moment, only to be distracted by some other emergency. It may have
slipped through the cracks at a time made difficult by joining American Optical,
launching Todd-AO, and dealing with his wife’s illness. Or perhaps
O’Brien did reply but his letter was lost in the international mail. In any case,
something went wrong.
After a brief wait for a response that never came, van Heel sent a short
letter to the prestigious British weekly Nature, which received it May 21,
1953. He also sent a longer article to De Ingenieur, a Dutch-language weekly