13-05-2009, 08:15 PM
By way of a break from earnest analyses of Epstein and Lane, a two-pronged insight into the BBC at work. What it couldn't achieve by rational argument, good old Aunty Beeb, power's most dutiful whore, sought to achieve by crass reconstruction. John Mortimer was having none of it:
The BBC in 1966/7 contained some of the most experienced and artful sykewarfare practioners the British establishment has produced (or conscripted). Curious, then, to see how crude was the partisanship deployed against Mark Lane:
Quote:The Listener and BBC Television Review, Vol. LXXV, No. 1930, 24 March 1966, p. 446
Lee Oswald - Assassin
By John Mortimer
John Mortimer’s latest works include his translation of Feydeau’s ‘A Flea in Her Ear’, at present playing at the National Theatre, and (with Penelope Mortimer) the screenplay for the film ‘Bunny Lake is Missing’
Art is not life and cannot be
The handmaid of society…
The television spectacular Lee Oswald – Assassin (BBC-1, March 15), billed as a ‘documentary play’, did not exactly throw a flood of penetrating light on the incredible tragedy which took place in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Indeed it accepted the findings of the Warren Commission in toto and attempted no psychological or political explanation. What Mr. Felix Lutzkendorf’s documentary did raise, however, is the whole question of the relationship of the event to its dramatization, of art to life, and the validity of painfully recreating painful events in order to make no comment on them whatsoever.
If the play had been better written perhaps these questions would have been raised in a more acute form. It would have been, no doubt, more valuable to argue the ‘documentary’ idea in the face of the sort of chillingly brilliant reporting Truman Capote has achieved with the Kansas murders. Even so I believe this kind of thoughtless surrender of creative responsibility to be unjustified. In the present example all we got was further proof, if proof be needed, that nothing is more unreal in art than the slavish reconstruction of reality. Lee Oswald – Assassin can take its proud place beside such other works as Highland Cattle Fording a Stream or Co-operative Workers Getting in a Bumper Harvest in the Ukraine in the gallery of ingenuity misapplied.
Much of my early life was spent in working in ‘documentary films’ which, although adequately efficient at showing the herring fleet putting out to sea, or bombers rising into the air to the accompaniment of symphonic music by Dr. Vaughn Williams, were poor at dealing with human motives or dilemmas. Indeed our documentary characters seldom said much except ‘Gerry a little naughty tonight’ or ‘Pass the tea, George’. We also had a great fear of actors, and thought that if a man were to be shown working a lathe on the screen he must work a lathe in what’s known as ‘real life’. It was almost with nostalgia that I read Mr. Rudolph Cartier’s note in Radio Times on his reasons for choosing Tony Brill (an excellent young American actor) to play the part of Lee Oswald. ‘Not only is he of the same age, height, and build’, writes Mr. Cartier triumphantly, ‘but he is also, like Oswald, a family man with two small children’. It is as if a director staging Julius Caesar chose an actor for the title role who was bald, bisexual, and able to speak Latin.
Having found an actor of the right height, the quest for Lee Oswald was carried on in two very distinct parts: before and after the assassination. In the first part the scenes were frequently slow, stagey, and heavy with unreality. Oswald was shown unhappy in the Marines and happy in Russia. No part was played by his mother – a character surely vital to any understanding of the Dallas tragedy – and the dialogue was loaded with historical foresight. ‘I brought you a present’, an Intourist guide, dressed more like the star of an ice show than any Intourist guide I’ve ever met, says to Oswald in a room at Moscow’s Hotel Berlin. Of course he opens it with delight and exclaims ‘Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky’. ‘Read what I’ve put inside it – “May all your dreams come true”’.
On such scenes it is unnecessary to dwell, or on the bit in America when the good-hearted neighbours come round and find the gun Oswald has just used to fire at General Walker propped up against the gas cooker. ‘Don’t tell me it was you that took that post shot at General Walker. Ha! Ha! Ha!’ Here the play loses the documentary conviction of The Avengers. However, after the assassination, with Oswald’s capture and questioning in the Dallas police station, in his extraordinary presentation to the reporters, the quality of the production changes. Mr. Cartier’s undoubted mastery of crowds on television emerges, and for the first time the surface of reality is caught.
But as the production achieves efficiency the basic questions become even more pressing. What is the intention, if any? What exactly are we meant to be experiencing? Because the extraordinary thing is that we having recreated for us on television, by actors dressed as the real participants, events which were actually seen, to the horror and amazement of the world, taking place on television. No comment, no creation; simply an event once seen real repeated in all its detail but with the reality removed – and what in the name of Luigi Pirandello can be the purpose of that?
Before the endless reflecting mirrors of reality which this question conjures up, the mind no doubt boggles. But what is also certain is that the minds of Messrs Lutzkendorf and Cartier have not boggled at all; indeed they have carried on, carefully choosing the sheriff’s hats and noting down the reporters’ actual questions, as if there were no problem at all.
If they had stayed tuned to their television sets after the production, instead of no doubt tramping off for a relieved brown ale in the BBC Club, those responsible for Lee Oswald – Assassin would have seen another sight on television. Another American folk hero, the curious, Hitler-admiring General Ky of South Vietnam for whose regime we are apparently expected to care so much, had ordered the public execution, with the victim’s wife and children present, of a Chinese businessman. We saw his wife, we saw the children, and they were crying. We saw a dim figure, standing behind parked lorries, waiting to be shot. Now I don’t know if we should sit in our comfortable chairs and peer at such events. I don’t even know if it is salutary or corrupting or what it is for us to do so. But I think I do know this – such a tragedy should not be imitated by actors unless it is to make some deeply felt or hard-thought-out statement about it. To do otherwise is to play at charades, to diminish our responsibility, and, finally, to offer a sort of insult in the terrible face of life.
The BBC in 1966/7 contained some of the most experienced and artful sykewarfare practioners the British establishment has produced (or conscripted). Curious, then, to see how crude was the partisanship deployed against Mark Lane:
Quote:Oz, March 1967
“Shut That Guy Up!”
By Mark Lane
What really happened at the BBC’s Lime Grove studios on January 29? Ostensibly, a much fan-fared impartial investigation into the death of Kennedy which pitted Mark Lane, author of ‘Rush to Judgement’ against two Warren Commission lawyers, Arlen Specter and David Belin and two of the Warren Commission’s influential defenders, Lord Devlin and Professor Bickel. What actually happened on TV screens outraged an undisclosed number of viewers; prompting them to jam BBC switchboards. The strict format of the programme seemed loaded against Lane, to say nothing of compere Kenneth Harris’s compulsive partiality. What didn’t appear on camera is even more fascinating. Here Mark Lane recounts his negotiations with the BBC, reveals how rehearsals with other protagonists were underway 12 days before he arrived and discloses astonishing occurrences behind-the-scenes.
If you were watching BBC-2 for almost five hours on January 29 you should have been informed that the distortion was not caused by a faulty television set in your home. It originated at BBC’s Lime Grove studio. It was, in fact, planned that way.
On January 17 I drove to a college in Philadelphia with anticipation of a debate with Arlen Specter, one of the most inventive of the Warren Commission’s lawyers. Mr Specter had been, I was informed, a young Democrat, given an assignment as an assistant district attorney by the Democratic District Attorney of Philadelphia. His employer permitted him to serve as a Commission lawyer, an extra-curricular bit of activity that enhanced both his reputation and his finances. Mr Specter returned from the Washington crusade. He changed his political party, announced his candidacy for the office of District Attorney, and the prestige that his work for President Johnson’s Commission brought him enabled him to defeat his former friend and supporter. On the very afternoon of my arrival in Philadelphia the leading newspaper announced that Mr Specter would be the Republican candidate for Mayor. You may well imagine my desire to meet so famous a person in public debate in his own city. But, alas, it was not to be. Mr Specter’s office announced that he must retire early that night (the debate was set for 7:30pm) for he was required to catch with me – twelve days later. (In the interim I flew to California, appeared on radio and television programmes there and debated another Warren Commission lawyer at the University of California at Los Angeles before flying to London.)
However, as the reader will discover, perhaps to his amusement, and as I discovered, much to my regret, my absence from London was apparently in error for I missed the BBC rehearsals for the extemporaneous debate programme. In retrospect I must add that I am not now sure that my mere presence in London would have ensured my knowledge of the rehearsal schedule or an invitation to the preparations.
It seemed just a bit odd to me that so astute a politician as Mr Specter would refuse to debate me in America (the major networks and leading universities had sought to arrange such debates on many occasions but Mr Specter was adamant in his rejection of every such invitation) and so quickly agree to escape across the ocean for the encounter. One less naïve would have had a clue that the BBC had somehow made the confrontation most attractive to the Commission’s representatives. I confess to having speculated about the matter with myself for a moment or two. I concluded that the suites at the Connaught, the expense account, the trip to London for the lawyers and presumably for their wives or associates, and perhaps even a fee might have tipped the balance. No – it could not be any assurances regarding the programme’s format. My own genuine admiration for the English respect for fair play ruled out that consideration.
The format was, of course, soon to become the question of the day. This being so let me trace my contact with it from the outset. The film’s director, Emile de Antonio (who having now been identified to you I must henceforth refer to as D, for I have only known him so, and I should forget who it is I write about if I call him anyone else), bore the burden of the original negotiation with the BBC officials.
He told me that the BBC had agreed to show the film on January 29, that there would be an intermission, and that it would be followed by a general discussion in which it was hoped that I would participate. I agreed at once. BBC insisted that I sign a document in which I agreed not to appear on any radio or television programme to be broadcast in England prior to January 29. This effort at the creation of a very small monopoly hardly seemed appropriate, but as it was the condition for the showing of the film, and as I did not plan to be in London much before that date anyway, I executed the document and it was submitted to the BBC. Subsequently, the BBC officials signed the contract purchasing the film for one showing.
My first direct contact with a BBC staffer came when I was in Los Angeles. A call came from London. A very correct and polite English voice informed me that it was owned by Peter Pagnamenta who was the assistant director of the programme which had been named “The Death of Kennedy”. He called me to find out when I would arrive and to be sure that I understood the approach that the director had taken to the programme. I would arrive on the 28th, I said, and should like to hear the director’s approach. He explained that the film would be shown. It would constitute the opening statement of “your case” as he put it. Then the Commission lawyer would be permitted to make comments. Didn’t I think it fair that they should speak next? I did, indeed. And then you will rebut and the debate will proceed. It all sounded fine, I said, but weren’t there to be two other participants? Oh yes. Lord Devlin, you now who he is? I did. Well he and a Professor Bickel will speak later in the programme. In other words, I said, you will have four Commission supporters present the Commission’s case and I alone will speak for the critics? In a sense you might say that, he replied, but Lord Devlin and Professor Bickel are not Commission personnel. I let that one pass not saying that they had been more effective for the Commission even if more ignorant of the facts. I said I would like to make a suggestion. Perhaps you might invite Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper – you know who he is? Among his credentials to qualify as a participant was the fact that he has read the 26 volumes, and his writings on the subject seemed to demonstrate that he was almost the only person in England to have bothered to examine the evidence. Certainly Lord Devlin gave no sign of such an acquaintance with the facts. The answer was that Professor Trevor-Roper was not to be a participant. And now that that’s out of the way, what hotel would you like to stay at. I couldn’t care less. Any will do. Well, then we’ll make a reservation for you at the X hotel, and if there is any change we’ll have a message waiting for you when you arrive at the airport. Please cable Dick Francis the time of your arrival and contact Paul Fox after you’ve settled in your hotel in London. The cable was sent.—Arrive January 28th 7:00AM.
And that was the first and last word regarding the format of the programme before my 7,000 mile journey from Los Angeles to London in reliance upon that conversation.
Arrived at 7:00 AM. It was raining. I was tired from the trip from New York to Los Angeles, a busy schedule on the west coast, the flight to London from Los Angeles, and the thought of flying back to New York in three days for two days there before flying back to Paris. But this was an important programme and well worth the effort. By worth the effort, I meant not that it would be worth it financially, for since I was not paid a farthing for the programme, and in fact was compelled to cancel speaking engagements for it which were to have paid handsomely, the programme was, in that sense, to be worse than a total loss. But the chance to meet the imaginative creator of the single bullet theory in an open, no holds barred encounter, before some seven million viewers, with the knowledge that it would be fully reported in my own country, was worth any sacrifice of time or money or effort. Still, I was tired. I cleared Immigration quickly with a greeting from the clerk. He said he’d be watching the programme. Customs, too, was fast and pleasant.
There was no message waiting. I called the X hotel to find that there was no reservation. Since D had told me that the Commission lawyers, Mr Specter who you have already met, and Mr Belin from Iowa, were to stay in rather luxurious quarters at the Connaught, I called there as well. No reservation for me. I called the BBC. A gentleman, obviously a night-time receptionist hoping the morning would pass without the kind of problem I was about to present, answered. He said he had no authority. Of course Mr Fox was not in and wouldn’t be for hours and, sir, no one is in, except me and I know nothing about hotels, perhaps you might call back in a couple of hours. Two hours passed rather slowly in the drafty terminal building. It was almost nine and I had left New York the evening before and hadn’t yet been to sleep. In due course a responsible and concerned young lady at the BBC was located and a reservation made at a hotel. I was too tired to care that the hotel was undergoing noisy renovation and that the lobby resembled a bombed out village or that the room was dark and musty.
Before I left the States, D had told me that the BBC had constructed a most elaborate model of Dealey Plaza and that it was hoped, by the BBC, that instead of aerial photographs of the area which appeared in our film, live, on camera, shots of the model might be substituted. D agreed to the substitution upon my agreement that the model was accurate. I took a shower, shaved, and called Paul Fox. The operator at the BBC cut me off. I called again. He was not in but would call back. He never did. I called Peter Pagnamenta. He was at a meeting and his office would switch me to the meeting room. We were cut off again. I called back. Mr Pagnamenta will call you in a minute. He didn’t. I called back in fifteen minutes and reached him. I said I would like to see the model. He said, sorry about the renovation at the hotel; hope it hasn’t disturbed you. I said that it is quite all right, thinking that if he knew about it why didn’t he book a room at some other hotel. I would like to see the model. He said, how would tomorrow do. Not too well, I said, for if any changes have to be made you may need some time and tomorrow is the day of the programme. Well, let’s see what time might be convenient for us for you to arrive. He said he’d call back. The phone rang and it was Per Hanghoj, a journalist for the Danish afternoon newspaper Ekstrabladet.
I said, how would you like to see the BBC model and meet some BBC officials? He said he’d like to and we took a taxicab to the BBC Lime Grove studio. There we met Mr Pagnamenta who permitted us to see the model. It was breath-taking in detail.
And in each crucial respect it was inaccurate.
One of the participants, Mr Bickel, in an effort to prove that no shots could have come from behind the wooden fence, the area from which some of the shots originated, had written in an American publication (Commentary, October 1966) “people were milling about this area and looking down on it from the railroad bridge over the underpass, and no one saw an armed man.” Mr Bickel’s argument obviously rests upon the allegation that one can observe the area behind the wooden fence from the railroad bridge which is above it. His abysmal ignorance of the geography of the area can probably be explained by his failure to visit the location. The railroad bridge is the same height as the base of the five foot wooden fences, not above it, and the fence area is heavily landscaped with bushes and trees so dense that it is absolutely impossible to see anyone behind the fence from the bridge. Yet the BBC model seemed almost designed to accommodate Mr Bickel’s false impression, although I felt quite certain that slovenly supervision, not mischievousness, was responsible for the model which placed the bridge above the fence and removed all the bushes and most of the trees from the area thus giving the model witnesses a view which the real witnesses could never secure.
In its Report, the Commission had said that an important witness, S. M. Holland, was living proof that no shots came from behind the fence since he ran to the area behind the fence from the railroad bridge “immediately” after the shots were fired. In our film Holland answered that incorrect conclusion by stating that it took him two or two and a half minutes to get to the fence since the area between him and that destination was “a sea of cars”. He said, they were tightly packed, bumper to bumper, that he had to climb over them. Again the BBC model accommodated the Commission rather than the facts. There was no sea of cars, just a few scattered models that would not have prevented Holland speeding to the fence.
Mr Pagnamenta resisted my suggestions for changes in the model. I suggested that we compare model to photographs. We don’t have any photographs in the studio, was the reply. How could you construct a model without photographs, I asked, but interrupting myself said, never mind, I have some at the hotel and I’ll fetch them now. Before I left to get them I observed the remainder of the set. On the far left, appearing almost as if it were in ??? was a small table, at which I was told I would sit during the programme. A larger table, raised, as is a judge’s bench, was in the middle, and it was this that created the hole in the ground impression for my table. To the right was another large table for two, and still further along, the set for our impartial moderator, Kenneth Harris.
Why the elevated table, I asked? For the two judges or assessors, as we call them, was the reply. I asked who might they be? As I told you before, Lord Devlin and Professor Bickel. I thought that they were participants in the debate. Well, they will participate as judges, that is they will give their verdict at the end of the programme, and as for the debate, it will not really be a debate. That is you will be given a chance to speak when you are personally attacked. When or if? You make it sound as if it is already set. Surely I didn’t come all this way to defend myself. I came to discuss the facts surrounding the death of the President. Isn’t that the name of the programme? Well, you had better talk with Mr Fox about that was the answer.
Mr Hanghoj and I were ushered into a small upstairs room to await Mr Fox. In time he appeared with Kenneth Harris. We were offered a drink as is the custom of the BBC. I accepted. My scotch arrived at once with ice and water as all Americans presumably like it, although I said I would prefer it straight. Mr Harris’ gin arrived just after we began to depart.
Mr Fox seemed deeply perturbed. I understand you have some problems, he said. I explained the problems. The model was not accurate. How can two Warren Commission sycophants be judges. Lord Devlin has served as the all-but official salesman for the Warren Report in England for more than two years. He endorsed the Report before the evidence was published, and since the publication of the 26 volumes has betrayed no trace of having examined them. Bickel, on a smaller scale, has tried to serve the establishment in his own country much the same way. How can you suggest that they be judges? Mr Fox said, after all are showing your two hour film and there is no need for everyone on the panel to agree with you. He submitted that he did not understand my point. If he desired, he could have a dozen Warren Commission spokesmen on the programme, and I would not object. What I objected to was the BBC establishing two such spokesmen as judges. Mr Fox, aided by the impartial moderator, said that we can hardly be expected to withdraw the invitation to Lord Devlin. I did not expect or hope that would be done. Just take off their black robes and make them mere mortals as were the rest of us. Cannot be done, said Mr Fox. Well, then, I said, introduce them properly. That is let the audience know that they written in support of the Commission’s central conclusion that Oswald was the lone assassin. Surely, said Mr Fox, you don’t doubt the integrity of two such important men in public life. Surely you believe that they can be swayed by the evidence if it proves that their previously held position was wrong. Their integrity was irrelevant to the discussion – their prejudice central, I offered. Mr Harris resolved the problem by stating that he would introduce them as two men who have supported the Commission’s view. He added that if I wanted to discuss my objections to them on the air, I would be given every opportunity to do so. I said that I would do so.
When we approached the crux of the matter – my role in the debate. It was set, it could not be changed. I could only respond to personal attacks, said Harris and Fox in one voice and several times. I doubt that the audience cares much for hearing personal attacks made or defended against, I said. I think, perhaps they would like to hear about the death of the President – that is why they will turn to the programme called The Death of Kennedy. If you want to do another programme, called Mark Lane Attacked and Defended, I will come back for it, but I do not suppose that anyone will care to watch it!
The format is set. The format is set. It cannot be changed. It cannot be changed. The film will be presented in four segments, the Commission lawyers will attack each portion and if, in doing so, they make any personal attacks upon you, you will be permitted some time to respond. In addition, as we have agreed, you will be given ample time to point out what you consider to be weaknesses in the programme’s format and with its choice of assessors.
In four segments, I asked? We worked for two years to make that film. We drove from New York to Dallas and back because we could not afford the air fare. My wife cooked dinner for us all in Texas because we could not afford to eat in restaurants. We have sacrificed to make that film. And you intend to chop it up into four pieces. Let it be seen as it was made, and then let your critics say what they will. The film has an integrity and an identity of its own. Do not destroy that.
Mr Fox said that in the contract, that Mr de Antonio signed, we have the right to show the film in four segments and that we intend to do it that way.
I called D. He said that the BBC had told him that the film would be shown with just one intermission.
I wrung but one concession from the BBC. Harris and Fox both agreed, both gave solemn commitments, that I would be given ample time at the outset of the programme to dissent from the format, to explain my objection to the judges, to explain that the film could not possibly present the case against the Report but only those portions which were, for want of a better word, filmic, and that, in my view, the BBC formula defeated a genuine exchange of the facts. We shook hands and were about to depart when Mr Hanghoj, as journalists will do, asked a few questions of Mr Harris.
Q: Don’t you write for the Observer?
Harris: Yes, I do.
Q: What is the Observer’s position on the assassination?
Harris: We don’t have one.
Q: You don’t have one?
Harris: No.
Q: Don’t you think that the subject is sufficiently important for you to think about it and take a position?
Harris: Well, we did do that when the Report came out.
Q: Yes?
Harris: Well, we supported the Commission.
Q: Have you taken another position since then?
Harris: No, we haven’t.
Q: Then the Observer’s position is in support of the Warren Commission?
Harris: Well, you might say that.
Q: Wouldn’t you say that?
Harris: Yes, I suppose so.
Q: You will be the moderator tonight?
Harris: Yes.
We arrived back at the studio one hour and a half before air time. The parties were well separated. I was placed in a small cubicle, lavishly furnished with food, liquor, and excellent wine. Some doors away were Specter and Belin and the visiting BBC brass, all of whom, we were told in whispers, had arrived for the programme – the longest live studio production in British history.
Just before air time I asked what was to be done about make-up. A veteran of three to four hundred appearances in America, I had expected that matter to be disposed of in a dressing room long before then. It will be taken care of in the studio. Make-up was applied to some but not to me. Of serious concern was the fact that there was but one set of the 26 volumes and these were given to Belin and Specter and placed far out of my reach. As the programme began it became clear that Harris was working from a script and that both Belin and Specter had copies of the script. I had none and, in fact, I thought that the spontaneous programme which had been described to me would preclude the use of one.
I shall not offer an account of the programme here. The English press was fair in its reportage, more fair than the American press has been on this subject. The Times reported on its front page that the BBC switchboard was jammed with viewers complaining that the programme was unfair. The Daily Mirror said, “Chairman Kenneth Harris officiously and for me, embarrassingly clumsily silenced Mr Lane whenever he tried to cross verbal swords with the rival lawyers…” The Daily Sketch said that Harris conducted the programme “far too brusquely”. The Daily Express headlined its story, “Viewers Protest ‘Unfair’ During TV Marathon” and added “Harris did appear to behave pompously”. In a story headed “Verdict on Harris” the Londoner’s Diary in the Evening Standard evidently found him, Harris, guilty of being “nervous”, “too abrupt”, and “fairly childish”. On the facts, the Times pointed out that many witnesses did insist that the shots came from behind a fence on a grassy knoll, and the Guardian, an original supporter of the Commission, did a complete turn about: “Mark Lane seems now to have won his case, or Oswald’s case.” And, “Now it seems clear to almost everyone but the Warren Commission that it was indeed a rush to judgment.” Could one bullet have hit both the President and Governor Connolly? If not, there were at least two assassins. Said the Daily Mirror, “It just doesn’t seem possible.”
The next day the Times ran a fairly lengthy and scrupulously fair and accurate story presenting some of my objections and the BBC reply. By combining that reply with the Kenneth Harris statement to the Standard the day before the definitive establishment position can be ascertained. But before that some more facts.
After the witnesses in the film said that they heard shots come from behind the fence, and saw a puff of smoke from that location as well, Cliff Michelmore, not waiting for the Belin-Specter response, said for the BBC, the whole of Dealey Plaza is bowl shaped and that the area behind the fence is criss-crossed with steam pipes, thereby accounting for the “smoke”. Ignorance, Mr Bickel’s only excuse, cannot be brought forward in defence of that false allegation since the BBC had sent Mr Michelmore to Dallas to look about. I know not what passes for a bowl in England but there would be little room for so flat a bowl to accommodate enough porridge for a very young child in my country. The area behind the fence is not criss-crossed with steam pipes. There is but one pipe anywhere in the entire area and it runs in a straight line from the overpass and not behind the fence. Does Mr Michelmore really think that a man who spent 42 years working that section of the railroad yards, as in the case of Mr Holland, would state that he saw smoke, that he knows that it came from a weapon, and be totally unaware of the presence of steam pipes that the clever Mr Michelmore found in his first trip there? I mention Mr Michelmore’s criss-crossed pipes because it was unfortunately typical of several false statements that he made – all of which conformed to the Commission’s case, if not to the facts.
But, of course, you saw all this and I should tell you of the programme that BBC did not transmit. While the film was playing, the debate in the studio flourished, only to die under Mr Harris’ heavy hand when the live broadcast, so to speak, commenced. An example. During an early segment of the programme Mr Harris began questioning Mr Belin, asking him in effect if he had engaged in any correspondence with me regarding the making of the film. Mr Belin, it seems, wished to become a movie star and, unable to make it on his own, felt that we should provide a camera, film, a crew and an opportunity for him to speak in our film for a minimum of thirty minutes. Mr Belin was well prepared for the leading questions put to him. He had the correspondence in question spread out before him even before the first question was asked which, I must confess, raised some question in my normally unsuspicious mind regarding the possibility that the area had been explored before the programme began. I quickly put the evil thought aside but it recurred in a more persistent form shortly thereafter when, for a moment, Mr Harris forgot what he was about and departed from the script. Mr Harris, perhaps to establish his own identity, asked Mr Specter about a glaring inconsistency that the BBC had tracked down in the Warren Report. The FBI agent, Frazier, had testified that an examination of the President’s shirt did not prove that a shot came from the rear but only that it was “possible” that a shot came from the rear. In the Report the word “possible” was escalated into “probable”. Despite Mr Harris’ sheepish grin regarding this discovery, it must be said that he appeared to have been fishing in shark water and to have hooked a baby minnow. Specter had no answer for the first misdemeanour. Then Belin handed him the wrong page of the volume, after I had volunteered the correct one, and there the word “probable” did appear but in another context. Specter read probable with his booming district attorney voice and thus the matter was settled. That is almost settled. I asked if I might comment upon that just for a moment. The answer from Mr Harris, who had now regained his composure and commitment, was a stern no. The matter was settled. But it was not forgotten. Soon a portion of the film was shown.
This would generally herald an immediate period of relaxation, but when the cameras in the studio were off the tension began to build. Specter scowled and raised his voice so that it registered in menacing terms. His anger was directed at a crumbling Harris. Why did you ask that question? We never went over that. If you do that again – well you had better not. I’m not fooling now. And then the prosecution attorney gestured towards me while I’m still addressing Harris. And you’d better shut that guy up too – I’m telling you now! I had spoken but a few words, mostly they were, “May I say something now?” Harris apologized. He promised to depart from the pre-arrangement no further. I left my little table and casually approached Mr Harris. Sir, I said, I have the feeling that I have missed something by not arriving a week ago. Have you been having rehearsals in my absence? Mr Harris said that they had gone over the general area of the questions with the Commission lawyers, yes we have. I suggested that it appeared that even some specifics had been agreed upon, based upon Mr Specter’s anger regarding one question and Mr Harris’s agreement to stray never again. Mr Harris replied that Mr Specter only meant that if he was not prepared for a specific question then he would be placed in the embarrassing position of having to fumble for papers and, added Mr Harris, Mr Specter was certainly more than half right about that. But, I said, you never even discussed general areas with me. No answer. I then asked Mr Harris if I might have a copy of the script. He said that there were but three, his, Belin’s and Specter’s. Of course, I could not doubt his word, but in my own country we rarely mimeograph just three copies of a document, we use carbon paper, and it was that which prevented me from fully accepting his answer. During the next four hours I made fifteen, count them, fifteen, requests to four different BBC representatives for a copy of the script.
At about eleven o’clock I found Mr Fox and told him that he had made a solemn commitment to me the day before. That it had been agreed that at the outset of the programme I might register a dissent from the programme format and choice of judges. Mr Fox said that I would be able to have time at 11:30. While that did not meet my definition of the programme’s outset, I agreed. Closer to midnight than eleven, Mr Fox said I could have a few minutes. I began by saying that the BBC had rendered a disservice to the truth when Mr Harris stopped me and then picked up his phone to converse with the powers that be at the BBC. Silence. More on camera silence. Then Mr Harris spoke. I could have almost sympathised with him had he appeared torn between his commitment to his word of honour and the word from above. But that conflict evidently did not confront him. He said, you may not discuss that subject at all. I then began to discuss the single bullet theory. At this moment, Specter, who invented the whole thing left his seat and charged over to Harris telling him quite loudly and now on camera, that I should not be allowed to trifle with his theory. (It had made him a district attorney and a candidate for the mayoralty and was not to be fooled with.) Mr Harris supinely yielded once again saying that I could only discuss subjects that came up in the second part of the programme. I asked him to tell me what to talk about and promised to any subject he wished to hear when he informed me that my time was up.
During a studio intermission it had become plain that Prof. Bickel had a surprise in store. He was going to depart somewhat from his previously published position and say that he was not quite satisfied with the single bullet theory and that if the single bullet failed there were two assassins. Specter was livid. The fixed jury was no longer under control. Specter demanded an opportunity to answer Prof. Bickel who had hardly uttered a word for almost five hours. Harris approached Bickel and asked if he would mind if Specter answered him when he rendered his verdict. They must have wild court scenes in Philadelphia I kept on thinking. Bickel was a bit put out. Harris was insistent – at last showing the stern stuff he was made of. Bickel reluctantly yielded.
After Bickel spoke briefly, Harris, as if the thought just struck him, turned to Specter and said, sir, would you like to comment on that. Well, as long as he was asked, Specter was willing. It did occur to me during this exchange that this was the very subject that I was prevented from discussing because it was not in the ‘second part of the programme’, whatever that meant. Surely, now that it had been introduced twice more, I would not be denied my first comment on the subject. Waiting until Specter concluded I addressed a rather brief request to our chairman. May I comment upon that? The reply was no.
The evening ended on an unmistakably light note. Lord Devlin summed up. He wanted us to let President Kennedy’s soul rest in peace. Anyway, suppose there was another assassin, no one has proved that he was a subversive, and if he wasn’t subversive what difference does it make? I was about to ask Lord Devlin for a definition of the word “subversive” that does not include one who kills his own President, but I decided not to.
The BBC officials invited me to wine and dine in my cubicle below. I was somehow neither hungry nor thirsty, just anxious to say a few words. Reporters from two London daily papers were there. They asked for an interview. I agreed. A young BBC officialette approached. He said no rooms were available for a press conference. It was not much before one in the morning and I found it difficult to believe that they could not scare up one empty room. Oh, it’s not that, the young man replied, but we cannot permit you to talk with the press here. I said that the BBC had made a room available to me and that I wished to utilize it for a conference. Cannot be done. Against the rules. The reporters were incredulous. We began to pack our belongings for a trip back to my hotel for the conference when the BBC relented and permitted it to take place there. I said that the programme had been rigged by the BBC to protect the Warren Commission lawyers from debate. I added that we never ran into that sort of trouble in countries, France as one example, whose economies are not entirely dependent upon the United States. The Socialist government indeed. Lenin must be twirling in his tomb.
I left BBC’s Lime Grove studio to find a few citizens waiting outside. One offered his hand and his sympathy and said that the BBC does not speak for the English people, not this disgraceful night it doesn’t, he added. Others agreed.
At my hotel a delegation of three, sent by twenty who had watched the programme, expressed similar views but in stronger language.
At Oxford University the next day the students made their views known also.
Mr Harris told the Evening Standard, “I don’t think Mark Lane has any grounds for complaint. He was there for one purpose, and one purpose only. As it was stated weeks ago, he was invited to attend so that if anybody made charges against him personally – for example he was just interested in making money out of the whole business or that he was a Communist – he could answer the charges against him.” Mr Harris added that if he permitted me to debate with Specter or Belin “I should have had trouble with the two lawyers. They only came on the basis of this agreement.” Mr Harris added that if he allowed me to enter the debate the two Commission lawyers “would have walked off”. I have never refused a debate on equal grounds with Commission personnel. One must wonder what the two lawyers know about their own case which would cause them to walk away rather than debate.
BBC told the Evening Standard, “We arranged a viewing session for a number of representatives from foreign TV networks, and they all made a point of saying how impressed they were by Mr Harris’s handling of the programme.” That statement appears to be untrue. I spoke with just one representative, Klaus Toksvig, of Danish TV. He told me that the BBC programme was extremely unfair. Perhaps the representative of the Austin, Texas, TV station took another view.
The BBC spokesman concluded, “We arranged a press conference for Mr Lane after the programme ended.”
As I prepared to leave London a BBC programme announced that Barrow and Southampton had tied 2-2. I just knew that I couldn’t be sure unless I read it in the Times the next morning.
Mark Lane,
Nykobing, Danmark.
9 February 1967.