I love stories like this! Neil Stephenson has a great wired magazine article about information technology of that time, and telegraphs. The article is kind of a precursor to the ideas in his excellent book cryptonomicon. You should stop what you are doing and read that wired article. And then cryptonomicon if you haven't already done it. Best book to read over the rest of our holidays.

Article in paywall at https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/

The book and the article are fascinating explorations of the impact of technology and cryptography on the world. The people who did the work to invent and build these worldwide systems were just like us (hackers, inventors, technologists), and we are just like them in a way. We all stand on the shoulders of giants.

Also I can't believe that article is 30 years old, boy I'm old.