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Frank StantonFrank Stanton
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So, I sat in the back of the room, and Stevenson was the final witness for the legislation. All the congressional people were, of course, beating the drums for free time. My statement was addressed against that, as effectively as I could do it, but I also was planning, if I had the opportunity, to come up with my idea of the debates.

I was sitting next to the head of the CBS law department, wonderful guy -- Leon Brooks -- and Leon was sitting there, listening with me. I don't think I had anybody else with me. Another principle I followed in being a witness was I didn't want to go in with a battery of personnel, PR people, etc., and I never took anyone to the witness table with me, unless the committee insisted I have somebody there, as did occur on one occasion. But, I felt if I didn't know the answer, I didn't want to have to turn to somebody else. It just looked to me like it was a sign of weakness.

So, Leon and I were sitting in the back of the room when Stevenson had done a spectacular job, because he told of a lot of incidents where he got mail saying, “Why did you take ‘I Love Lucy’ off the air?” See, in those days they made talks, a little bit like what [H. Ross] Perot did this time, but the commercial wasn't used that much. One of the things Stevenson read was a wire that he'd received, a telegram in the second campaign, in which somebody had written a poem and accused him of knocking “I Love Lucy” off the air, and how dare the candidate do a thing like that? It was very funny, making the point that if they had the time to use as they wanted to, they wouldn't be up against this kind of -- It wasn't entirely a valid point, but anyway, he was carrying the day. I said to Leon, “My God, how can I talk about the debates after this? Nobody will want to hear about the legislation.” And Leon said, “Well, you can ask for a temporary resolution.” I didn't know





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