COUNTERPUNCH LETTER : The Historical Facts About ‘Quiz Show’

Since some doubts have been voiced in The Times about the historical authenticity of the movie “Quiz Show” and since the movie is based on something I wrote and since I have been involved intermittently with the film’s production during the last six years, I feel it appropriate, in the shared interest of accuracy, to make a few comments (“ ‘Quiz Show’: The Pattern Still Lives” and “The Ethics of a Movie on the Quiz Show Scandal,” Sept. 19).

Obviously the rendering of a historical episode into a drama necessitated some changes in the recorded facts. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to name a similar effort in the last three centuries of historical drama that did not do the same.

Robert Redford has not only created a fine work but has also remained remarkably faithful to the actual events. I was impressed throughout the making of this film with Redford’s almost obsessive attention to establishing a sound historical basis for both the facts and the emotional realities of his characters. There is hardly a scene that does not have a counterpart in real life.

Much the same is true of the portrayal of my own role in conducting the investigation. Naturally, I was helped--as I have written--by the fine work of Assistant Dist. Atty. Joseph Stone. Nevertheless, the central story of the film--the dramatic public exposure of a rather large fraud and, more poignant, the undoing of Charles Van Doren, was, indeed, the work of the congressional committee for which I then conducted the investigation. This can be clearly demonstrated by the abundance of contemporaneous material in my possession--including the letter that Van Doren wrote me after the hearings--which material I used both in writing my book and working with the scriptwriter. It is available to any journalist who wishes to independently ascertain the facts.

Nor, might I add, has Redford treated any of the characters unfairly. Indeed, in most cases he has struggled--successfully--to make them, if anything, more sympathetic on screen than they appeared to me at the time, with the exception of Van Doren, for whom I felt, and still feel, affection. But that remains now--as it was then--a matter of empathetic judgment.

RICHARD N. GOODWIN

Concord, Mass.