As the red-eyed, haggard witness strode into the House Caucus room, two rows of standees in the rear strained forward to glimpse at the unwilling star of TV's dimmest hour. Charles Lincoln Van Doren folded himself uncomfortably into the witness chair, gulped some water, then stripped away the last layer of illusion separating him from the shills. "I would give almost anything I have to reverse the course of my life in the last three years," began Van Doren in a remarkable confession (see box).
The fraud had not been occasional, as his fans had hoped; it was not merely a matter...