MCI executive Vernon Wright dies at 87

CHEVY CHASE, Md., Sept. 2 (UPI) -- A leading figure in the break-up of U.S. phone giant AT&T, Vernon Orville Wright, has died of kidney failure at age 87, a source said.

Wright led MCI Communications during its transition from a start-up into a company large enough to persuade the Justice Department to file an anti-trust suit against AT&T. The suit, after 10 years of court battles, resulted in the break up of "Ma Bell" into seven regional "Baby Bell" companies in 1984, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Wright, who called himself "the inside man … who did the nitty-gritty work," also pushed for MCI to turn away from unreliable satellite technology in favor of constructing a fiber-optic cable network, which gave rise to a popular e-mail service and an early version of the Internet known as NSFNet, the Post reported.

Wright retired as president and chief executive officer in 1984, but returned to serve as acting CEO from 1987 to 1990 while Chief Executive Officer William McGowan recovered from heart surgery.

McGowan died in 1992. MCI was sold to WorldCom for $30 billion in 1999. After WorldCom collapsed, a smaller version of MCI was sold to Verizon in 2005 for $6.7 billion.