TV Rabble-Rousing

The recent flap over ABC’s staging of a news event brings to mind the following: Many years ago the then-controversial Angela Davis was scheduled to deliver a speech on the campus of the Claremont Colleges.

Now, Claremont, to its everlasting credit, is a rather laid-back community--certainly no rival of Berkeley in the field of activism.

This didn’t set too well with one of the three major networks covering the event, so it enlisted the aid of its art department to produce and deliver a goodly supply of picket signs, which it thrust into the hands of a number of bemused students--who were intent only on waving into the camera and greeting Mom.

Suffice it to say, the turmoil it sought to create never materialized (and, no, it wasn’t ABC).

DICK WILSON

San Pedro