Satellite Boy by Andrew Amelinckx

Author:Andrew Amelinckx [Amelinckx, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

PART 3

Nowhere to Hide in the Global Village

(Spring 1965–Summer 1967)

The Montreal Police Department’s wanted poster for Georges Lemay from the fall of 1962. From the RCMP file of Georges Lemay.

Lise Lemay’s FBI Wanted Poster from 1966. FBI/from the RCMP file on Georges Lemay.

16

A Novel Idea

SPRING 1965

IT WAS A NOVEL IDEA. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY Scotland Yard, the RCMP, and the FBI would use a live satellite television broadcast to hunt down their most wanted criminals.

Early Bird’s commercial debut was scheduled for June, and COMSAT was planning a splashy television special—“This Is Early Bird”—to let the world see what the satellite could do. They would broadcast the show on all three U.S. networks, the CBC in Canada, Telesistema Mexicano in Mexico, and across Europe, including Yugoslavia, the only Eastern Bloc country to see the broadcast.

Av Westin of CBS was selected to executive produce the hour-long show for the three major U.S. networks and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Westin had started out as a “copy boy” to famed television journalist Edward R. Murrow when he was still only on the radio, and he had made a name for himself as the producer for CBS Morning News with Mike Wallace, which began airing in 1963. CBS had just promoted him to executive producer of live coverage of major events and of news specials. “This Is Early Bird” would be his first assignment.

Westin envisioned a mixed program of news, science, culture, and sports that would best show off the new satellite’s capabilities and illustrate how television unites us all. He also wanted to convey how the satellite allowed mutual participation in both directions by highlighting actual uses of Early Bird, like a news exchange that he believed would soon be a daily occurrence once there were enough satellites up and running.

Thom Benson, newly named head of TV features and special events for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), helmed the Canadian end of the hour-long broadcast. Benson had been with the CBC since its founding in 1952, handling duties both behind and in front of the camera.

One of the show’s segments would be as groundbreaking as the satellite itself. They would show the world’s most wanted fugitives live on television for the first time in history.

The CBC contacted the RCMP in April to take part in the live exchange of two of Canada’s most wanted criminals with the FBI and Scotland Yard.

McClellan loved the idea. Although a by-the-book officer who came up through the ranks of the highly regimented and tradition-bound RCMP, he believed in using the most cutting-edge policing methods available. He was determined to modernize his police force, demonstrated by his order that ended mandatory equestrian training for recruits when he became the RCMP’s thirteenth commissioner.

Benson suggested the RCMP feature Lucien Rivard, who was then making international headlines for his escape in March from Bordeaux Prison. But in the midst of the Rivard Affair that was shaking up the political world, McClellan and his senior officers decided against featuring the drug smuggler, a move that would again draw McClellan into the muck of national politics.

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