AT&T; Tries to Polish Its Image After Glitch, Clumsy Response

American Telephone & Telegraph, under fire from rivals and government officials for this week’s huge phone glitch, took steps Friday to polish its tarnished image while admitting that its explanations of the crisis were inconsistent.

After several rivals took out full-page newspaper ads mocking the long-distant giant’s debacle, AT&T; Chairman Robert E. Allen shot off an apologetic letter to company employees that blamed mechanical and human failures for the company’s third major phone disaster of the 1990s.

“Then, making it worse, we were inconsistent in explaining what happened,” Allen said in the letter.

The company said Allen was referring to AT&T;’s early explanation in which the company blamed technicians for the breakdown of long-distance service in New York on Tuesday. The problem paralyzed New York’s airports.

The blame-laying sparked an angry response from the technicians’ union. In an hourlong teleconference Friday, AT&T; executives apologized for the former reference and repeated a subsequent explanation that the technicians’ supervisor had been at fault.