Opinion: Heel of Charles van Doren knocks air out of Redford movie
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Because The New Yorker hates the future, it will not allow you to read online a wonderful blast from the past: Charles Van Doren’s version of his role in the ‘Twenty One’ scandal.
You may know of the scandal around this and other early-TV game shows (as I mostly do) from Robert Redford’s highly entertaining anti-television film ‘Quiz Show.’ (For scenes of Van Doren’s and Herbert Stempel’s actual performance on ‘Twenty One,’ click here, here and here.)
Titled ‘PERSONAL HISTORY: All the Answers: The quiz-show scandals — and the aftermath,’ the piece is worth...well, I don’t know if it’s worth the $4.50 cover price of The New Yorker, but it’s worth a Starbucks paper-wastebasket dive or a trip to a not-distant library.
Most interestingly, Van Doren introduces a note of media ambition that may have been driving several of the central players. Van Doren’s abortive post-’Twenty One’ career at NBC included straightforward journalistic work such as an interview with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and a job doing high-culture segments for Dave Garroway. Manhattan Assistant D.A. Joseph Stone, who eventually nailed Van Doren and nine others on second-degree perjury charges, ended up trying to get Van Doren’s help for a book on the affair in the 1990s. The ambitions of Richard Goodwin, the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce investigator who brought Van Doren to testify before Congress, are obvious even through Redford’s smoke and mirrors: He went on to serve both Kennedy brothers and collaborated on the film.
But the best new wrinkle for me was one hidden in plain sight: Although Van Doren and Stempel had both finished their respective runs on the show by March 11, 1957, Redford opens his film with a pre-credit sequence involving the launch of Sputnik, which took place seven months later, on October 4 of that year. I remember because this witty scene was what informed my decision to like the movie. It’s a harmless chronological distortion (one of many in the movie), but this new reminder of how Redford and screenwriter Paul Attanasio forefronted the anti-capitalist ironies of the material (the scene balances the supposed national emergency of the USSR satellite launch against a sequence of the actor playing Goodwin shopping for a fancy car) had me shouting out anew: Why was the quiz-show scandal ever considered a matter that demanded state attention? If the Hollywood Ten are considered martyrs to a shameful episode in our country’s history, why should the quiz-show villains be any less sympathetic?
Read, for example, Van Doren’s description of his initial interrogation by district attorney Stone:
My meeting with Stone, who seemed to be in charge of a quiz-show investigation, was a disaster. I was seated in a chair with a light in my eyes; Stone and three or four other men sat or stood about ten feet away. I later tried to write down much of what Stone asked me, beginning with questions about the interview in Time from a year earlier. Was I telling the truth when I talked to the reporter? I hesitated, trying to remember everything I’d said. ‘I left out some things that were none of his business.’ ‘I’m interested in the things you didn’t leave out, the things you said,’ Stone said. ‘For example, how you got on the show, ‘Twenty-One.’’ [sic] He had read in Time about the tests I’d taken, and wanted to know who’d contacted me. I told him about Al Freedman, and how we’d met during dinner with a mutual friend. ‘Did Al Freedman say you had done very well on the test, and that was why Barry and Enright wanted you to try out for the show?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Did Freedman say only one person had ever done better?’ I didn’t remember saying that to the reporter. I shook my head. ‘I’m going to repeat my question. Did he say only one person had ever done better on that second test?’ ‘Maybe he did. I’m not sure.’ ‘He did say that, Mr. Van Doren. Thank you for trying to remember. Now, what I want to know is, did he tell you the name of the person — the only person — who had done better than you?’ The room was hot and I had kept my suit jacket on. Stone and the others were in shirtsleeves. I could feel the sweat tricklining down from my armpits. I told Stone that if Freedman had said that, he probably would have named Herb Stempel. Stone said that I must have known a lot of facts in order to win more than a hundred thousand dollars on ‘Twenty-One,’ and I told him that I was lucky. With the bright light in my eyes, it was hard to see Stone’s face. ‘I want to go back to the time when Freedman said the only person who had done better than you on the test was Herb Stempel. Did he also say that you would not be able to beat Stempel?’ ‘He said it would be hard.’ ‘Did he also say you would need a lot of luck to beat him?’ ‘I guess so’ ‘I don’t believe he said that, Mr. Van Doren. What did he actually say? I want you to think very hard.’ ‘I’m trying.’ My lips were dry. ‘Did he say you would need help?’ I looked up, squinting in the lights, which seemed brighter than ever. ‘No,’ I said. Stone’s grilling went on for an hour or so after that. I never admitted that I had received help. Finally, Stone said that I was free to go. I’ll never forget his last words: ‘You can lie to me, but I’m not going to let you lie to the grand jury.’ The grand jury was being convened, Stone told me, and I would have to testify. I rose unsteadily and walked out of the room. I suppose that, at the time, I hated him for making me feel like a criminal...
Even through the scrim of Van Doren’s self-dramatization and self-pity here, it’s worth holding onto one fact: He was not a criminal, and only became one when he lied to the grand jury.
So why did a district attorney interrogate him, force him to testify under oath, ruin his reputation? Why did Goodwin do the same on a much larger stage? What vital principle, of law or even of polite society, was at stake in the question of whether Charles Van Doren was selected because of his quiz-taking skills or because of his good looks? Why were Americans not irate that the U.S. Congress was wasting the taxpayers’ time and money in a show trial of reality TV personalities? And why have generations been willing to accept that the agents of government were acting out of selfless public interest when they destroyed the careers of some people trying to prosper in show business?
These are rhetorical questions, but I actually don’t know the answer to one of them: What was the principle of law that empowered Stone to begin his investigation? (I can see a more clear path to Goodwin’s congressional inquisition, which had the fig leaf of Washington’s oversight of the airwaves.)
To his credit, Van Doren voices none of my outrage. Or maybe it’s to his discredit: Maybe Charles Van Doren should have stood up when he had the chance, not to confess his expropriation of suplus value or rue his rentier crimes against The People but to say, ‘You bastards don’t have the right to march in and ruin my life because of something I did on TV.’