Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov, 17, 1959

Poet in the Poky Has Samson Sort of Woes     Jerry Baker, the promising young coffee-house poet, appeared in my office yesterday afternoon, shortly after being released from Lincoln Heights jail.     He sat down, gazed fondly at an open pack of cigarettes on my desk, and informed me, "You smoke my brand."     I offered him one.  He took it, thanking me.     "I'm here," he said, "because I'm told you're a fair man.  You have  a good reputation.  You come very highly recommended."     Borrowing a match, he lit his cigarette.     "In fact," he continued, "not one, but two of my cellmates recommended you as the man to see."     "About what?" I asked.     Baker frowned.  "About my hair, but I'm getting to that.  I hitchhiked here, you see.  I made money by reading my poetry in coffee houses along the way.  Cleveland, Houston.  I'm from Brooklyn.  That's in New York."     "I'm from back East myself," I told him.  "I've heard of it."     "Good," he replied.  "Now, last Wednesday I was hitchhiking on Sunset on my way to the Unicorn.  I had my wood flute and my poetry with me, when the two policemen came along in a patrol car.     "At first, I thought they were going to let me go because I only had one foot in the street.  The other foot was legal.  On the sidewalk.  But they ran a make on me and discovered there was this warrant out from the last time I was here.  A year and a half ago.  For hitchhiking on the freeway.      "So," Baker shrugged, "they arrested me.  It was all fair and legal.  They were very nice about it.  They even asked me to recite some of my poems, but I didn't because -- you know, they bugged me.     "Later on, " he added, "I did play a few notes on my flute for the jailer.  Anyway, it was $25 or five days, and not having the $25, I took the five days."     "You mentioned," I interrupted, "something about your hair."     "Yes," he sighed.  "Look at it."     It was sort of a dark blond, trimly out, parted on the left.     "I see it," I said.      Baker jumped to his feet.  "No you don't!" he shouted.  "They cut it off this morning.  All the hair I'd been growing since June.      "And for good measure," he added, collapsing back into his chair, "they stole my goatee."     "Who?" I demanded.  "Who did?"     "Who else?" he cried:  "The cops.  At five o'clock this morning, this cop grabbed me out of my cell and said, 'We're going to the barbershop, sonny.'     "I said, 'No.  I want my hair.  You can't have it.'     "When we got to the barbershop, I grabbed the door and wouldn't let go, so he got me in an arm lock.  I kept protesting.  I guess I tore his shirt, so he bounced my head on the floor."     Having to relive the experience obviously was an ordeal for the poet.  He grabbed another one of my cigarettes.      "This policeman put me in the barber chair," he continued, "and the barber told me, 'Sit still and I'll give you a nice, clean haircut.  You wiggle and I ain't guaranteeing nothing.'     "I sat still and let them violate every civil right I was born with.  When the barber finished, the policeman told him, 'The goatee.  That goes, too.'  And it did." I Got a Naked Chin     Baker stood up again. "It was my personality," he sighed.  "They took my whole personality.  I'd be ashamed to go into a coffee house now.  I'd feel self-conscious."     "What are you going to do now?" I asked.     "What can I do?" he snapped.  "Nothing! Until I grow my hair back.     "Then," he added, "I'm going to blow this town.  You know?  It bugs me."

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov. 16, 1959

Search for Better Brand of Justice     Erle Stanley Gardner, you either like or dislike.     He's easy to categorize.     If you don't like him, he's a troublemaker, a rebel who gets his kicks by destroying the public's illusions concerning the integrity and intelligence of our district attorneys and police.     As author of more than 100 Perry Mason mystery novels, he's continually belittling these public servants.  His man Mason always shows them up.     As a private citizen, Gardner founded the now-famous Court of Last Resort, which, in freeing dozens of innocent men from prison, has proved in fact that our system of justice isn't infallible.     (And when you prove, time after time, that certain prosecutors and police ruined innocent men's lives in their over-zealousness, you're not about to win any popularity contests about law enforcement officials.)     If you like Gardner, he's the champion of the underdog, unafraid to step on anybody's toes.      The other day, however, I sat down with Gardner for a talk -- and walked away an hour later with a new definition of the man.     "Frankly," he told me, launching into one of his favorite subjects, "the basic problem facing law enforcement today is one of public relations.     "People get fed up seeing law enforcement authorities, and particularly prosecutors, take technical advantage of the laws.  Laws," he explained, "with usually severe penalties, enacted to curb a usual serious crime situation -- but they apply them to much lesser situations."     Gardner cited the Mann White Slavery Act.     "Years ago," he said, "people became fed up with the pimps and panderers who seduced young girls and forced them into prostitution.     "They passed the Mann Act.     "What happened after that was that a couple of young men took some women, who were ready, willing and able, on a train from Sacramento to Reno.  It was the type of weekend trip that is indulged in by young people from time to time and place to place everywhere -- with the single exception that they crossed a state line.     "To the extent that the people had in mind when they passed the law, there was no white slavery involved, but a prosecuting attorney promptly arrested them as white slavers."     Gardner also mentioned  a case in which an ordinary auto theft by a bunch of winos on a New Year's Eve was tortured into a kidnapping because the car's owner was passed out drunk on the back seat.     Gardner's dislike of "eager beaver" prosecutors -- D.A.'s who measure their personal success by number of convictions rather than whether they feel justice was done- is passionate.     But he's equally firm in his defense of district attorneys who try to live their role as representatives of the people with honor.     "I know one district attorney who committed political suicide by refusing to prosecute a man he felt was innocent," he said.     "Unless we give law enforcement authorities better tools with which to work," he said, "their hands are tied.  They're licked before they start. Element of Distrust     "Yet the legislatures won't give them the tools because they distrust what law enforcement will do with those tools.     "We need new laws to cope with modern conditions, but the people don't trust the prosecutors to apply them properly.     "The fundamental problem today," Erle Stanley Gardner concluded, "is how the people themselves feel toward prosecutors and toward police."     Gardner is neither a rebel nor a champion of the underdog.  He's merely a man in search of a better brand of "justice for all."

Voices – Evelyn Rudie

Above, Evelyn Rudie, 9, who played Eloise on TV, makes the front page of the Mirror with a story about vanishing from home to go see Mamie Eisenhower.

Paul Coates’ Nov. 10, 1959, column (“Evelyn Is a Real Old Hand at Drum Beating”) brought a response from Rudie, who is now co-artistic director at the Santa Monica Playhouse: Evelyn Rudie here. Wow - what a blast from the past. But you know - Leo was wrong. Although he was a good friend of mine, he was also notorious for getting himself in the midst of exaggerated gossip. I never asked him to be my Valentine. True, I sent lots of Valentine's (and St. Patrick’s Day cards, and Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving and Christmas) - everybody did that in those days. You bought little boxes of holiday notes, passed them out to everyone in your class, teachers, friends, relatives. But when I was six, and seven, and eight, my heart truly belonged to Paul Coates and in 1959 he was the only person I actually asked to be my Valentine. Paul - if you're up there looking down, or down there, looking up, I hope you hear that. :)  And Leo, shame on you for making me out to be a “loose” woman at age 7.

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov. 14, 1959

Mash Notes and Comment     "Dear Mr. Coates:     "Humorous though your column about taking your wife with you to Japan was, I just wanted you to know that it did the hearts of many women good to have you come right out and say you are glad your American wife is as she is, and not the servile Oriental type.     "We get so much silly drivel these days by men who want all the good things this modern world offers, yet evidently want wives of a bygone era, those 'dedicated to the needs of men.'     "Thank goodness the best and smartest young men recognize there is much more to life and to marriage than simply having a woman to wait upon them.     "Good for you.  You're a fine writer.  It was good to see a man write an honest column like that."  (signed) Ruth King, Los Angeles.     -That was no man.  That was my wife. ::      (Press Release)  "It is said by the working psychiatric force that there is a very thin line bordering the genius from the moron.     "It too follows in the field of comedy -- a microscopic boundary between the humorist as opposed to the ham hock.  But Tom Lehrer is a wit one cannot serve on rye.     "He is the master of the absurd, and the caustic.  At gatherings, he usually is referred to in chic conversation as the 'Elvis Presley of the Avante Garde,' and just as handsome.     "Certainly no sideburns, but a faint Listerine scent about him that makes him wonderful to be near.     "And Tom Lehrer is all man -- never swears, always tells the truth.     "Quite a strange phenomenon for a gentleman in the theater, one must admit.     "Tom Lehrer and I first met through his record.  He recorded satirical ditties while teaching at Harvard.  Purpose of this was to make a little pin money to buy gas for his car.     "I wore the grooves out in learning by heart his 'Masochism Tango,' 'When You Are Old and Gray' and the lifting 'Poisoning in the Park' -- and sang them constantly in the shower.     "Seven years later, we met.     "I told Tom my feelings and he understood -- for 200,000 other girls had worn out their records, too.     "Having a competitive spirit, I decided to woo him.     "One day, we spoke of marriage.     "Tom told me with kindness that it was out of the question, for we weren't compatible . . . " (signed) Audrey P. Franklyn, Public Relations, Hollywood.     --Those Listerine-users!  They turn their nose up at everything. ::     (Press Release)  "Sen. John F. Kennedy is a man with an enormous head and a small body.     "At least, that's the way Kennedy's pretty wife, Jacqueline, says he would appear if she were drawing a picture of him.     " 'He's much more serious than I thought he was before I married him,' says Mrs. Kennedy in an article in the current Look magazine.     " 'He looks young,' she adds, 'but he's never been a boy.  After I got to know him, I went out and took a course in American history.' " (signed) Public Relations Dept., Look Magazine, New York.     -Nothing wrong with his head, Mrs. Kennedy.  Give him a decent haircut and he'd look like the rest of us.

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov. 13, 1959

Hucksters of Horror Tell How to Succeed     I listened in on a trilogy of success stories this week.     They were about three local-boys-who-made-good.  Their ages averaged 25.  Each was married, with two to four children.  None had any special educational advantages.  In fact, two never finished high school.     Yet, today, they're earning between $25,000 and $50,000 a year apiece.  Tax free.     They live in good neighborhoods, drive good cars, wear good clothes.  Their neighbors respect them, and apparently the police do, too.  Because none of them has so much as one arrest to mar his record.     This, to them, is vital.    Because if they were picked up, booked or even known, it would probably mean the end of their very flourishing businesses.     They are, by trade, heroin dealers.  They're the dope racket's middlemen.     They buy a few ounces of H at a time, cut it, and sell it to pushers at a fantastic profit.     Strangely, I'm told that the men don't even know each other.       Less strange is the fact that none of them has ever taken a fix.  They -- like most dealers -- are in the game strictly for the big dollar.  Yet they all admitted, in the fantastic interviews which I heard, that in the table of organization of their trade they were strictly lower income bracket salesmen.     How I heard the interviews, or who conducted them, I can't say.  Obviously and unfortunately, the interviewees didn't risk jeopardizing their freedom.  They would never have opened their mouths unless they were positive that what they said couldn't be used against them.     The stories, if true -- and, under the circumstances, I have every reason to believe them -- serve as a fantastic indictment against the system we have of policing narcotics out of our society.       The fact that each has been operating for so long (from 2 1/2 to 5 years each) without once being molested by a law enforcement agency;  the fact that they are men of not especially high intelligence or cunning;  the fact that each just kind of "stumbled" into the business;  and the very fact that they're so cocky that they  would permit the interviews -- it all totals up to one helluva shocking commentary on the efficiency, or the sincerity, of society's so-called  drive to rid itself of a major evil.     I wonder out loud how these men can possibly still be operating today.     Most of the strikingly similar stories they told dealt with the facility of their operations, and the minimum risks involved in buying and selling their product.  Getting it here or just across the border was equally simple, they said.     And even if they were caught, they added, they'd only get three or four years in prison under existing law.  After all, they'd be first offenders.     The ratio between profit and penalty made the risk worth taking, easily.     "I'd still get out of the joint a young man -- and a rich one," one dealer explained.     All talked about "retirement."  None lived too ostentatiously.  That wouldn't be smart.  Each had a front "occupation," although none worked.  Each mentioned that probably, some day, he'd take his fat bundle of savings and go into some legitimate business.     One said:  "If they'd passed the Dills' Bill (a bill killed in committee by the state legislature this which would have stiffened narcotics penalties considerably), I think I'd have gotten out right then."     But he added that the "void" left by him would be filled quickly -- high jail penalties or not -- so long as there was so much money to be made so easily. One Must Be Ethical    Pulling out, all agreed, would be easy, just so long as they played it level with their business connections when they left.  Just so long as there was no heat immediately afterwards -- anything to point the finger at them  as informers.     In my days of reporting, I've talked to a lot of addicts and peddlers.  They were small men, emotional, confused, hating themselves for what heroin made them do.     But never before had I heard the cold businessman, who shrugs off his participation in the most vicious of all rackets with the rationalization, "If I wasn't dealing it out, somebody else would be."     It was a lesson.

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov. 12, 1959

The Mirror follows the Lillian Lenorak story. Below, Paul Weeks profiles suspect Tord Ove Zeppen-Field. This Mother Wonders Why Her Son Died     Many eyes -- including those of some U.S. senators in town for public hearings this week -- see the juvenile delinquent.     But somehow, the focus, the image, is never the same.     To the policeman, the juvenile delinquent isn't just a bad boy, or a bad girl.  They are potentially dangerous criminals.  A boy's age -- the fact that he's not yet 18 -- doesn't make him any less dangerous.  Experience has taught the policeman that an immature punk, paired with a loaded gun, is as deadly an enemy as he can face.     Through the eyes of a probation officer, a juvenile delinquent is a kid who's made a mistake, or two, or more.  He's an anti-social, but not beyond redemption.  The probation officer's job is to straighten the kid out and keep him straight.  He's got to see him in a kindly light.      Other people see the juvenile delinquent in other shades of vision.     The judge, the neighbors, the "nice" kid who has to take the long way home from school to avoid being beaten up by a gang, the j.d.'s parents ("He's really a good boy."), the preacher, the rabbi, the father -- each has his own definition.      Today, I'm going to give you another definition -- as applied by a housewife whose concern is a tragic one.     Her name is Mrs. Lembersky.  She live son L.A.'s east side.     On Oct. 17 of this year, her 15-year-old son, Larry, left the house at 6 p.m. to attend a church bazaar seven blocks away.     Mrs. Lembersky, and some other people I've talked with since that day, described Larry as a very popular, real fine kid.      He'd been a Cub Scout, Boy Scout, an honor student at Hollenbeck Junior High, and was, at the same time he walked out the front door that evening, a member of the "B" football squad at Roosevelt High School.     At the bazaar, when he and a friend were playing a dart game, a 14-year-old kid approached them and said that somebody wanted to see them outside.     The "somebody" turned out to be nearly a dozen members of the Little Eastside gang.  One of the gang's members, it turned out, had taken Larry's joking comment about a "squeaky bicycle" (made more than a month before) as a personal insult.     Larry and his friend walked innocently outside.  They were encircled, jumped, slugged, kicked.  As they fought their way through the circle and started to run, Gilbert Roque, 17, plunged a 7-inch knife into Larry's heart and killed him.     "Gilbert Roque killed my son," Mrs. Lembersky told me yesterday.  "He's a murderer.  A cold-blooded murderer."     "But you watch," she said, "He'll be treated like just another juvenile delinquent.  He'll be back on the streets in a year or two."      Gilbert Roque's story reportedly is that he'd been threatened with a shotgun in the face the week before by a rival gang.  He was just a bystander the night he killed Larry Lembersky .  He carried the knife for "self-defense," and when he saw Larry and his friend running toward him, he thought they were after him and he used the knife for "protection."     The dead boy's mother told me: "After my son fell down, his friend rushed back and bent over him.  Then the same boy knifed him in the back."     "Is that self-defense?" she asked.     In panic and pain, Mrs. Lembersky called Gilbert Roque's mother after the killing. Why, Why, Why?     "Why," she demanded, "did your son kill my son?"     Mrs. Lembersky told me: "The boys mother said she didn't know why.  She said that her son was  a good boy."     "He's not a good boy, Mr. Coates," Mrs. Lembersky cried.  "Good boys don't murder people."     Juvenile delinquents.  Juvenile killers.  I hope the senators come up with some answers, but optimistic I'm not.

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov. 11, 1959

John Law Gets Sort of Rough Now and Then     For a minute.  Talk to him for just a minute and you know that he's not the man who looks for trouble.      He's a quiet man.  Everything about him is quiet.  His voice.  His manner of dress.  The way he walks into your office.  He makes no noise.     Age:  Mid-40's.  Distinguishing characteristics: None.     He's just one of the 2 1/2 million people in this city.     What sets him apart from the rest -- for today, at least -- is his story.     "I manage a cafe," he starts.  "It's a nice place.  Family type.     "When my partner and I took it over seven years ago, it had a bad name.  We worked hard to make it clean and respectable and that's what it is now.     "What we did," he continues, "we had a few policemen come by occasionally for a meal or a coffee and we gave them special rates.  They came back.  And they brought other officers.     "Now, a lot of our trade is police officers.  They're a nice bunch, and their presence has helped keep the drunks, the bad element, away.  Some of the other officers even come in on their days off.  Bring their families."     But that is merely by way of introduction to his story.       "It was Friday afternoon.  I was sitting at home.  My place is on 43rd St.     "I was sitting in the living room when there was this -- like an explosion.  Four men came flying through the front door.  One with a shotgun, the others with pistols.     "It flashed through my mind that they were hold-up men, but they weren't.  They were plainclothesmen.     "They handed me a search warrant with three names on it.  None of them were mine.  The second name I recognized, though.  Mail for him had occasionally been delivered to my house by mistake.     "I told the officers my name and asked them what they wanted.  'You know what we want,' one of them said.     " 'The man you're looking for,' I said, 'I think he lives on 43rd Pl.  The same number.  This is 43rd St.  I've had mail come here for him before.  The same address- but 43rd Pl. not St.' "     The quiet man adjusted his glasses, sighed, and continued:     "Right away, one of the officers asked me, 'This mail?  Where was it coming from?'     " 'I don't know,' I said.  'It wasn't my mail.  I didn't pay attention.'     " 'You know,' the officer laughed.     " 'Then they started searching.  The four of them.  They spread everything all over the place.  One of them started to pry off the back of my TV set, and I said, 'Wait a minute.  I'll get you a Phillips screwdriver.'  I got it for him and he unscrewed the back instead of tearing it off.     "What I didn't know at the time was that they went out and broke down my garage door.  Splintered it.  They could have asked me to open the lock.      "For three hours, while I stood there watching, they turned the place upside down.  Then they left.     "As they went, I asked them, 'Who's going to pay for the damage?'     " 'Not us.'  they told me.  'It's in the course of duty.'     "The next day, I mentioned to some of the officers in the cafe what had happened.  They said it was too bad it had to happen to a nice guy like me.      "Then, ten days later I called the lieutenant who led the raiding party on my place.  I asked him again if the police would repair the two doors they broke in.  'We're not liable,' he told me. Apologies, but No Pay     "A few days later, two officers came by to apologize.  They were different officers.  They said a police friend of mine from the cafe had called their station and suggested that someone drop by.     "They said it had been a mistake.  They said the warrant should have read 43rd Pl., not St.  Again, I asked about the damage and got the same answer.      "It seems to me,"  the quiet man said, "that they should pick up the bill for the damage they did."     It seems that way to me, too.

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov. 10, 1959

Evelyn Is a Real Old Hand at Drum Beating     I'm not one to go around saying I told you so.    But I did.     Three years ago I warned you about Eloise's alter ego, Evelyn Rudie.     I told you that she was an artful woman.  That behind that saccharine smile of innocence was one of the most calculating, wily women of Hollywood, Zsa Zsa Gabor not withstanding.     This I knew long before Miss Rudie's unscheduled flight east to consult Mamie about her Hooper rating.     Shortly after television and Evelyn were born, I had the occasion to interview the child star on a TV show.     Miss Rudie was 6, going on 7, at the time.  And I was practically old enough to be her father.  Or at least her older brother.     But you know Hollywood.     About a week after the show, I received a thinly disguised letter of affection from the tyke.     Being a married man, I naturally ignored it.  In fact, I destroyed it immediately.     When one has a wife one just doesn't leave that kind of perfumed mail spread all over the living room coffee table.     Then, a few days later- it was the first week in February -- came note No. 2.  This one didn't beat around any bushes.     It asked, bluntly, did I want to be her Valentine?     And it was signed, "Love, Evelyn Rudie."     Assuming that this thing she felt for me was nothing more than childish infatuation, I decided to play it as a big joke.     I was at a Sunset Strip restaurant with a group of friends when I let it drop, during a lull, that I'd been getting these letters.     "She seems so sincere.  I'd hate to hurt the poor child.  But, really -- the difference in our ages," I said.  "It would never work."     As I said it, Leo Guild, a notorious eavesdropper who worked for the Hollywood Reporter, appeared over my left shoulder.     "WHO seems so sincere?" he asked, not very casually.     Envisaging Evelyn and I being linked as the latest twosome in tomorrow's editions, I answered him:     "I was just telling the folks here, Leo, that Evelyn Rudie has been sending me the most intimate letters, and I'd just hate to hurt the poor-"     "Evelyn Rudie?" he interrupted.  "You been getting those letters, too?"     My face fell.  "Too?"     Guild nodded.  "She's been doing that for years."     "Years?" I cried.  "She's not even 7 yet."     "Well," he qualified, "for a few years, anyway."     "And," he added, "she just sent me a note asking if I'd be her Valentine."     This, I dutifully reported to you three years ago.  Evelyn Rudie is a sneak.  She double-dates, but without an extra girl.  Just to get her name in the columns.     This Mamie Eisenhower routine, I'm convinced, was strictly another one of her publicity schemes.

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov. 9, 1959

Trials and Tribulation of Doodles Weaver     It's an axiom thought up by Sir Isaac Newton and perpetuated by Hollywood:     What goes up must come down.     And its proof sat in front of my desk, in striped shirt and gaudy suit, a shade less subtle than mustard.     His professional, comical name was Doodles Weaver.     "People think I'm important," he was explaining to me.  "Everybody's heard of Doodles Weaver.  The American public really likes me."     With nervous vigor, he tamped the tip of his burned-out cigar in an ashtray on the edge of the desk.     Then he said, "But I can't get a job.  In this town, I can't."      Doodles Weaver gave his age as 44.     "Actually, I'm only 43.  I'll be 44 next May," he corrected.  "I tell people around Hollywood I'm 44 though," he added, smiling feebly.  "Maybe they'll give me some Walter Brennan parts."     Ten years ago, the name Doodles Weaver demanded, and got, $1,000 a week for entertaining the people in Vegas.     Last year, the figure scribbled next to the words "gross earnings" on the comedian's income tax return was $4,200.  This year it promised to be even less, he said.     It was a long, painful fall -- the kind where you bounce off ledges on the way down.     But it's nothing new to Hollywood.     There are hundreds in town -- names you know -- who'll tell you that they've read from the same script.  They'll tell you that when you're making it, you better hang onto it.     But they, like Doodles, testify with keen hindsight.     "I never invested a cent," Doodles told me.  "I never really thought I'd need to.  It was just last year that I finally got around to putting a down payment on a house.  Two thousand dollars.  All my savings."     It's a modest, two-bedroom place in Burbank.  There he lives with his wife, Rita, and year-old daughter, Janella.  They're expecting another child.     He still drives a Cadillac, but he's not exactly putting on a front with it.  The car's 10 years old; and he still owes $400 in payments.     As he talked about himself, I got the impression that Doodles was still in the state of shock.     "The agents.  No matter what agent I got, they all tell me the same thing.  'Everybody knows you, Doodles.  When something comes along, they'll call you.'     "I used to get tickets to the premieres, invitations to the big parties.  Now, nothing. 'Top Ratings . . . Going Great'     "Two years ago, I had a kid show," Doodles sighed.  "Top ratings.  Going great.  The kids love me.  But the station did some rescheduling and I was out.     "Now," he went on, "I pay the bills by doing dinners, banquets.  Chamber of Commerce.  They're people, like everybody else, and they love me.  I put them in the aisles."     Doodles Weaver stood up, lit his cigar, which again had died, and pointed at me.      "You tell me," he said.  "I've still got good stuff.  Real good stuff.  The people outside of show business still have faith in me.  But in the business, I'm lucky if I get one day's work a month."     Havana in hand, Doodles Weaver left.     He did call me, however, the next day.  "Did you hear the news, Paul?" he asked.     "No," I answered.     "I just been promised a new kids' show on TV and got a solid week of good work in a movie," he said.  "I told you things would change."     This, also, is Hollywood.

Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, Nov. 7, 1959

Public Unexcited About Rigged Shows I'm home.     And if you've been following my dispatches from the Mysterious East, I'm sure you're aware by now that there is really nothing mysterious about it at all.      I suspect that Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who started those shy rumors about the intrigues of the Orient, was -- as are many men of the sea -- prone to exaggerate.      Actually, all that the people of the Mysterious East needed was a good Ugly American like me -- with notepad, copy pencil and  a vague knowledge of what Freud was trying to get across -- to unmask them.     But as I say, I'm home now.  And that's all water under Toko-Ri.     And in the land of the Occident, the topic of the day is quiz shows.     Or, to be more specific, "deceptive" quiz shows.     I see by the large type on the front pages that a U.S. House subcommittee is in a state of shock over the lost morals of our nation.  It's members are righteously indignant.     But from what I've learned by talking to people of much less prominence, there's very good evidence that the public just doesn't give a damn that the programs were rigged.     They more or less expected it.  The revelation was barely greater than it would have been  if they'd been informed that professional wrestling isn't on the up-and-up, which I hope by now everybody knows it isn't.     To support my rather hasty theory, I found an article yesterday in the Nov. 2 issue of Broadcasting magazine.  It's title: "The Public: Calm in Eye of the Storm."     It reveals the results of a Sindlinger survey on public attitudes toward the quiz show investigations.     To the question "Did you watch any of the quiz shows when they were at the height of their popularity last year?"   89.2% answered yes.     And 85.9% of those who watched said they enjoyed them.       Next came the significant question:     "Even though contestants on quiz shows are helped, have you found the quiz programs educational and entertaining enough to want to see them on television again?"     Here, five persons answered yes to every three who answered no.     And only 39.2% of those surveyed felt it was a good idea to take quiz shows, rigged or not, off the air.     Somehow, in these answers, shines a reflection of our times.       We are -- no doubt about it -- living in an age of deception, an era of sham.  Everything isn't what it seems to be, but we know it and we're not concerned.  We expect it. Commercial 'Gamesmanship'     In fact, we've particularly based our economy on it.     We don't really believe the ads that say one cigarette has less harmless ingredients than another cigarette, but that a company is spending thousands upon thousands of dollars to make us believe it doesn't offend us in the least.  That's commercial "gamesmanship."     But now that a Congressional investigative team has dragged our morals and ethics out of the closet for an airing, I can't help but get the feeling that, as a nation of supposedly intelligent people, maybe we've been rationalizing our mores a little too much.