Free Dreamers and Deceivers by Glenn Beck Page A

were about to expire. Just over two months earlier, on Thanksgiving night, he had finally taken all he could stand.
    “They’ll never let me alone!” he’d shouted. “They’ll keep after me until I’m broke or dead, and nobody cares which it is!”
    “I do, Howard,” Marion pleaded. In all these years together she’d thought she’d seen him at his worst, but this was different. “We can still get through this—”
    “But I can’t! Why won’t you see that? I’ve wasted my life and yours! Everything I’ve ever done means nothing!” In the midst of his rage he’d grabbed a fireplace poker and swung it again and again at the walls, the family photographs, and the many awards that were carefully arranged on the mantelpiece.
    When he’d looked at his wife again he was horrified by what he saw. In his blind anger he’d struck her. Marion’s arm was bleeding. For the first time since he’d met her he’d put fear into those beautiful eyes.
    The metal bar in his hand dropped to the floor and he fell to his knees in front of her, but she had already left him and run for the door.
    That was the last time he’d seen her, and the very last time he ever would.
    And so it ends, Armstrong whispered.
    It had been quite a chore to remove the air-conditioning unit from the bedroom window, but at last it came free and the way was clear.
    The night was cold, but he was well dressed for it. All that lay before him was that final step.
    He had always loved the feeling he got from standing way up high. That night, at that moment, the feeling was no different. His regrets were all behind him.
    And with that thought, Edwin Howard Armstrong took a last deep breath, and then walked off into the air.
    EPILOGUE
    Armstrong’s body lay hidden until the next morning, crumpled and still on a third-floor landing. The maintenance man who discovered the body knew immediately who he’d found.
    The suicide made the front page of every paper in town.
    Lee de Forest got the news and quietly made a number of calls in pursuit of the gory details. He then issued a statement regarding the death of his long-standing enemy: “Armstrong is dead, and I am alive, and hope to live on for many years. What a contrast!”
    De Forest spent those remaining years constructing what he hoped would be an everlasting place for himself in history. He lobbied for a Nobel Prize and, also unsuccessfully, tried to convince his fourth wife to pen a glowing biography to be titled I Married a Genius. Among the source material was a sampling of future predictions he had made along the way:
    While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility.
    I do not foresee “spaceships” to the Moon or Mars. Mortals must live and die on Earth or within its atmosphere!
    The transistor will more and more supplement, but never supplant, the Audion.
    As a PR stunt, his publicist once sent a letter made out to “The Father of Radio, Hollywood, California.” Upon its successful delivery to him, de Forest was to use it as proof to the newsmen of his unchallenged legacy.
    The letter was soon returned by the Postal Service, marked Addressee Unknown.
    Though money isn’t everything, history records that when he passed away in 1961, Lee de Forest had less than $1,300 to his name.
    When David Sarnoff was told of Armstrong’s suicide, he was quiet for a time, and then, as though he stood accused by the messenger, he said, “I did not kill Armstrong.” The company was closed on the afternoon of the funeral, and Sarnoff himself led a large group of mourners down the street to attend the service.
    Marion Armstrong did not suffer her husband’s death in silence. Not long after he’d been laid to rest, she took up his many legal battles against some of the most powerful corporations in America.
    Using funds from a settlement with RCA, Marion stood up to the giants one by one. Motorola, Philco, Admiral, Emerson, Sylvania,