Assassination Program Alert

[L Verge]

I must say that I agree with the comments above! I was totally disappointed and disgusted in several spots, and I will probably open myself up to slander and/or libel when I cite my reasons for feeling this way.

Let me begin by saying that Surratt House was not involved in any of the planning except to give approval for filming at the site. We heard nothing further until they called to schedule the shoot. You may have noticed that none of my staff or volunteers participated. We did not even know when the program would run until John Stanton alerted us on this forum. That is Step One in how to irritate both a museum director (who has worked with some wonderful media people) and a Lincoln assassination "nut" who strives for perfection.

Step Two (and this is strictly me being opinionated): Don't open with a talking head who is a Lincoln scholar, but who was/is (?still) rather condescending to those who are intrigued with the assassination studies. I will flat out state that the National Park Service has a ranger by the name of Eric Martin assigned to Ford's, and Eric would have been an excellent spokesperson for that part of the program.

Step Three: Don't let several errors pop up unedited in the first few minutes of the presentation. I could see things going downhill from the moment that the talking head said that John Wilkes Booth was the youngest child in the family. Obviously, he overlooked Joseph Adrian Booth (perhaps because he has never studied the assassination in-depth?).

Step Four: When you finally turn the narration over to one of the foremost scholars in the assassination field - Michael Kauffman - let him do the talking! It irritated me no end that Mike's information on the escape route was cut to short sound bites that were almost disjointed when put into final format. Mike narrated our Surratt Society tours over the route for decades before retiring, and he could have dispensed so much knowledge...

Step Five: If you want to watch this old broad have a stroke, fade to a commercial by showing a brief glimpse of an upcoming segment that showed the back of a familiar head and headwear. I knew what was coming next and wanted to turn off the TV - but, I didn't. I then suffered through what appeared to be the longest portion of the whole darn program. I have spent a good portion of my 43 years at Surratt House dealing with the misinformation given by this next talking head. There has been so much research done by reputable scholars in the field to refute his claims that it literally hurt to see the "topic" of Booth escaping from Garrett's farm come to the surface again. I will say that the gentleman has expanded his theory a bit. I do not recall that he ever contended that Andrew Johnson was the mastermind of the plot against Lincoln, but he does now -- right down to Booth having conversations with the Vice President.

A final comment about the Mudd and Surratt history: Mike Kauffman did a good job of "hedging" the history of Mudd with a single statement to the effect that the doctor's guilt or innocence is one of the contentious parts of the story, but I think a few more pros and cons would have been appropriate. As for Kate Larson's portions on Mary Surratt and the trial and execution, they were adequately done, but definitely anti-Mary. Most of you know that I happen to believe that Mary had knowledge of something being afoot, especially in the early plotting, and I understand how the government found grounds to try her. Therefore, I agree with what Kate said, but I do think some words were needed as to how deeply Mary was/was not involved. Maybe I was being touchy, but Mary really came off as appearing to be the controller of the conspiracy. It also irritated me that, when discussing our Surratt House, they would show it today and then flash up (several times throughout the show) the 1901 photo of the building. In 1865, it looked nothing like what it had been transformed into in 1901. It would have been better to show the 1867 engraving of Surrattsville that appeared in national newspapers when John, Jr. was returned for trial. The way it came across to me was that we had inaccurately restored the house -- it was supposed to look like the old photo in 1865. And yes, that's how picky I can be.

In defense of those who did narrate various portions, anyone who has worked with the media knows that you are at the mercy of both the reporter/director and the final copy editor, so the public never knows what was actually said in total that could likely have been better than what the amateurs who control the program end up putting together. That's what happens when you let the uninformed shape your way of thinking.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln....