Television: Important Story

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Bowron, whose name incidentally fell out of Mickey's big mouth. Bowron's lawyer pointed out that, although the program was announced as "unrehearsed," the fact that it was shown in Los Angeles three hours later on a kinescope made it a "deliberate and calculated event."

Interviewer Wallace is a onetime actor and announcer, with no experience as a news reporter, the stage at which professional journalism wrings the naivete and irresponsibility out of its cubs. He denied that he had foreseen or meant to encourage Cohen's epithets, insisted that he had invited the hoodlum on his show only to "go after an important story"—of illegal gambling in the U.S.

This week ABC's TV Network Boss Oliver Treyz took the unprecedented trouble of appearing personally on the Wallace show to make a full retraction of Cohen's vituperation and an apology to those it victimized. Wallace said that he was sorry too. Nobody suggested publicly how the show might avoid such incidents in the future. But Wallace is pondering a lawyer's idea that potentially dangerous interviews be recorded in advance.

*Graham, who has known (and prayed for) Cohen since 1949, once said of him: "He 'has the makings of one of the greatest gospel preachers of all time."

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