Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In light of the recent death of its founder, Ted Turner, here's a complete episode (except, no ending credits?) of Cable News Network's (CNN) series Special Assignment, titled "Doomsday Government," reported by David Lewis.
This is an exposé of a super-secret government agency that directs what has been referred to as a "shadow government," operates with no oversight whatsoever (to the point fraud, wrongdoing and abuse mushroomed), and the various sub-agencies that serve under this entity.
[NOTE: This is from a master tape, and thus is shorn of any commercial breaks]
Includes:
Show opening titles
Preview (with comments by Tom Golden [who comments on and off during the entire show], Chief of Counter-Intelligence, Strategic Defense Command, nuclear arms expert William Arkin, and people only identified as "Bob" and "Ralph"), and episode title
Part I, with shots of super-secret sites and jets flying; infrastructure of spy satellites, eavesdropping antennae, weapons programs - and Special Access ("Black") programs, including COG (Continuity of Government), meant for government to survive a nuclear attack and run by NPO (National Program Office, authorized by Ronald Reagan in 1982 and partly started up by Oliver North), described by Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN), also involves Presidential Successor Support System, and is carried out by the CIA, State and Defense Departments, and FEMA; "Adam, and "Bob" also reveal details, and Bruce Blair of Brookings Institution gives more background; a look at their "gravely flawed" communications system (amusingly (or not) this portion uses scenes from the 1983 telefilm "The Day After" to represent the attack)
Part II: Recapitulation of COG and NPO, before going into a litany of contract irregularities (including no competitive bidding on contracts), security breaches (used to hide embarrassing problems) and cover-ups; plus a look at year-by-year budgets for these secret programs, with more comments from Rep. Hamilton and additional comments from Rep. Dave McCurdy (R-OK), Frank Conahan of the General Accounting Office, and attorney Bruce Fein
Part III: A look at two people - Tom Golden and former military intelligence officer Fred Westerman - who blew the whistle on the fraud in COG and NPO, and paid a dear price; John Marsh, Army Secretary from 1981-89, speaks of Tom, while security consultant David Mann speaks of Westerman's situation
Part IV: A look at how, in the NPO structure, an unelected official outside the legal line of succession could somehow end up as President of the United States, starting off with clips related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22nd 1963; this plan dates to four decades of Cold War nuclear escalation; "Ralph" gives the details of this scheme (including a program called PSQ); those once considered under this system included such names as Sen. Howard Baker, former CIA Director Richard Helms, UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, Dick Cheney, Edwin Meese, former House Speaker Tip O'Neill and Dick Thornburgh; an official is quoted as saying this plan does not jibe with the Constitution; Arkin speaks of the implications, as does William Van Alstyne of Duke University Law School; a clip of the fall of the Berlin Wall is shown, along with Boris Yeltsin taking over Russia, which David suggests may make the whole COG scheme moot - but then clips of Operation Desert Storm are shown, bringing this spectre back from the dead; after which David sums up the entire premise of this edition
No ending credits in the copy we were given, unfortunately - but we would like to note that one verified source mentions that Mary Whittington was the producer of the program.
This aired on local Chicago TV (via cable) - and everywhere else in the U.S. - on Sunday, November 17th 1991.
Special thanks to Bill Geerhart and the fine folks at the CONELRAD YouTube channel for sharing this video with us and allowing it to be shared here. youtube.com/@CONELRAD6401240
About The Museum of Classic Chicago Television:
The MCCTv (FuzzyMemoriesTV) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose primary mission is the preservation and display of off-air, early home videotape recordings (70s to early 80s, mostly) recorded off of TV (in Chicago or other cities now too); things which would likely be lost if not sought out and preserved digitally. If you have any old 1970s videotapes recorded off of TV please email: tapes@fuzzy.tv We preserve the entire broadcasts in our archives - the complete programs with breaks (or however much is present on the tape), for historical preservation. For information on how to help in our mission, to donate or lend tapes to be converted to digital, please e-mail tapes@fuzzy.tv Thank you for your help!
In light of the recent death of its founder, Ted Turner, here's a complete episode (except, no ending credits?) of Cable News Network's (CNN) series Special Assignment, titled "Doomsday Government," reported by David Lewis.
This is an exposé of a super-secret government agency that directs what has been referred to as a "shadow government," operates with no oversight whatsoever (to the point fraud, wrongdoing and abuse mushroomed), and the various sub-agencies that serve under this entity.
[NOTE: This is from a master tape, and thus is shorn of any commercial breaks]
Includes:
Show opening titles
Preview (with comments by Tom Golden [who comments on and off during the entire show], Chief of Counter-Intelligence, Strategic Defense Command, nuclear arms expert William Arkin, and people only identified as "Bob" and "Ralph"), and episode title
Part I, with shots of super-secret sites and jets flying; infrastructure of spy satellites, eavesdropping antennae, weapons programs - and Special Access ("Black") programs, including COG (Continuity of Government), meant for government to survive a nuclear attack and run by NPO (National Program Office, authorized by Ronald Reagan in 1982 and partly started up by Oliver North), described by Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN), also involves Presidential Successor Support System, and is carried out by the CIA, State and Defense Departments, and FEMA; "Adam, and "Bob" also reveal details, and Bruce Blair of Brookings Institution gives more background; a look at their "gravely flawed" communications system (amusingly (or not) this portion uses scenes from the 1983 telefilm "The Day After" to represent the attack)
Part II: Recapitulation of COG and NPO, before going into a litany of contract irregularities (including no competitive bidding on contracts), security breaches (used to hide embarrassing problems) and cover-ups; plus a look at year-by-year budgets for these secret programs, with more comments from Rep. Hamilton and additional comments from Rep. Dave McCurdy (R-OK), Frank Conahan of the General Accounting Office, and attorney Bruce Fein
Part III: A look at two people - Tom Golden and former military intelligence officer Fred Westerman - who blew the whistle on the fraud in COG and NPO, and paid a dear price; John Marsh, Army Secretary from 1981-89, speaks of Tom, while security consultant David Mann speaks of Westerman's situation
Part IV: A look at how, in the NPO structure, an unelected official outside the legal line of succession could somehow end up as President of the United States, starting off with clips related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22nd 1963; this plan dates to four decades of Cold War nuclear escalation; "Ralph" gives the details of this scheme (including a program called PSQ); those once considered under this system included such names as Sen. Howard Baker, former CIA Director Richard Helms, UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, Dick Cheney, Edwin Meese, former House Speaker Tip O'Neill and Dick Thornburgh; an official is quoted as saying this plan does not jibe with the Constitution; Arkin speaks of the implications, as does William Van Alstyne of Duke University Law School; a clip of the fall of the Berlin Wall is shown, along with Boris Yeltsin taking over Russia, which David suggests may make the whole COG scheme moot - but then clips of Operation Desert Storm are shown, bringing this spectre back from the dead; after which David sums up the entire premise of this edition
No ending credits in the copy we were given, unfortunately - but we would like to note that one verified source mentions that Mary Whittington was the producer of the program.
This aired on local Chicago TV (via cable) - and everywhere else in the U.S. - on Sunday, November 17th 1991.
Special thanks to Bill Geerhart and the fine folks at the CONELRAD YouTube channel for sharing this video with us and allowing it to be shared here. youtube.com/@CONELRAD6401240
About The Museum of Classic Chicago Television:
The MCCTv (FuzzyMemoriesTV) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose primary mission is the preservation and display of off-air, early home videotape recordings (70s to early 80s, mostly) recorded off of TV (in Chicago or other cities now too); things which would likely be lost if not sought out and preserved digitally. If you have any old 1970s videotapes recorded off of TV please email: tapes@fuzzy.tv We preserve the entire broadcasts in our archives - the complete programs with breaks (or however much is present on the tape), for historical preservation. For information on how to help in our mission, to donate or lend tapes to be converted to digital, please e-mail tapes@fuzzy.tv Thank you for your help!
![KXAS Channel 5 [Fort Worth-Dallas, TX] - Emergency Broadcast System Test (7/30/1979)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oGJOsPDG-k8/mqdefault.jpg "KXAS Channel 5 [Fort Worth-Dallas, TX] - Emergency Broadcast System Test (7/30/1979)
Heres another example of how Emergency Broadcast System tests were handled by local stations back in the day - in this case, from KXAS Channel 5 in Fort Worth-Dallas, TX.
(NOTE: Another EBS test from another Dallas-Fort Worth station - WFAA Channel 8, from 1978 - can be seen here: https://youtu.be/_9SvldZ8zs0 )
Includes:
Ending of PSA for The Family Place (a shelter for battered women) (voiceover by ??)
This is followed by the obligatory Emergency Broadcast System test (voiceover by ??)
The test - two tones, played simultaneously at 853 and 960 Hz, per FCC guidelines - only lasted a bit more than 23 seconds. The rest in this 60-second test were the This is a test... intro at the start, and the outro script at the end (both of which were also shown on screen as they were being read). However, there is no indication (between the actual emergency spiel and This concludes this test...) of which area this station serves (which would have been the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex).
Station ID / promo for The Muppet Show (voiceover by ??)
First few seconds of Act 5 of Days of Our Lives
This aired on local Fort Worth-Dallas TV on Monday, July 30th 1979 within the 12:00pm to 1:00pm timeframe.
About The Museum of Classic Chicago Television:
The MCCTv (FuzzyMemoriesTV) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose primary mission is the preservation and display of off-air, early home videotape recordings (70s to early 80s, mostly) recorded off of TV (in Chicago or other cities now too); things which would likely be lost if not sought out and preserved digitally. If you have any old 1970s videotapes recorded off of TV please email: tapes@fuzzy.tv Even though (mostly) short clips are displayed here, we preserve the entire broadcasts in our archives - the complete programs with breaks (or however much is present on the tape), for historical preservation. For information on how to help in our mission, to donate or lend tapes to be converted to digital, please e-mail tapes@fuzzy.tv Thank you for your help!")
![ON TV - Orson Welles at The Magic Castle (1978) [LOST Special] 🏰 📺](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pO3b2PsnSgI/mqdefault.jpg "ON TV - Orson Welles at The Magic Castle (1978) [LOST Special] 🏰 📺
A spooky treat! 🎃
Sourced from a relatively-good Betamax dub, (who knows where the original recording went? Not us) heres the (seemingly) complete broadcast of a heretofore long-lost pay-tv special — Orson Welles at The Magic Castle, as shown over the ON TV subscription service (research found that it also aired on Showtime in September 1978).
A remembrance by Abb Dickson, from the book Orson Welles Remembered - I picked up the phone, I called Orson, I said, “Look, I’ve written this Magic special...” I said, “I need for you to do the introduction and the in-and-out. It will probably be one day of shooting, at the most two, and I’ve only got, I think, $25,000. Will you shoot this?” And he said, “Sure! But I get the extra film.”
We go across the street to Columbia Pay Television and in less than an hour we have sold a special called Orson Welles at the Magic Castle. Orson and I worked out all of the intros and outros. So he showed up, we did our tape, we did our intros, we shot for that one day, and the next morning we were to finish the outside shots where Orson arrived at the Castle — full of fog — and he gestures and the doors open and he walks into the Castle. Well, Orson called me at about 7 o’clock in the morning and said, “I’m not coming. I’ve shot everything they need, you can shoot the rest of it. I’ll send you my wardrobe, but you’re going to have to have a hat made because your head is smaller than mine and my hat won’t fit you.” So I’m the one outside, gesturing in the cape and wandering through the fog, and I was the one who finished the shot.
(NOTE: Several library music cues featured in the special had to be modified for posting here)
Includes:
Our host (surreptitiously played by Abb Dickson in disguise) introduces us outside the castle and describes what - and who - are allowed in it, followed by the opening title
Orson enters the building where strange things are happening, and Abb Dickson (in fez) explains about, and demonstrates, the Indian rope trick
He then turns the program over to Abb who introduces the following guests:
- Peter Pit, from Holland; does various tricks and jokes
- Ger Copper, who does various tricks
- Kuda Bux, The Man with the X-Ray Eyes from Pakistan
- A look at piano player Invisible Irma (a ghost) on display at the Irma Room
- More magic from Peter Pit (with magical floating cane) at the Palace of Mystery
- Jay Marshall, in the Conjurers Corner, does tricks involving large rings
- After his piece ends, we hard cut to Abb (in a King Tut costume) presiding over it
- Hard cut again, bringing us inside the Parlour of Prestidigitation, with Albert Goshman, who does tricks with two women, Wendy and Eileen, in attendance
- Abb does tricks with an Oriental theme
- A filmed segment with Orson doing magic
Orson then closes the program (I remain as always, obediently yours...) with credits:
Orson Welles at The Magic Castle
Starring Orson Welles
Featuring Abb Dickson
With Kuda Bux, Ger Copper, Albert Goshman, Jay Marshall, Peter Pit
Produced by Joe Butt, Brad Schreiber
Directed by Tom Trbovich
Written by Abb Dickson, Orson Welles
Lighting Consultant - Greg Brunton
Associate Director - Chris Darley
Production Stage Manager - Paul Miller
Camera - Larry Heider, Bob Keys, Wayne Orr
Video - Mark Sanford
Audio - Larry Stephens
Technical Director - Harvey Berger
Videotape Editors - Gary Princz, Max Curtis
Make-Up - Greg Nelson
Production Assistants - Wendy Charles, Kathi Heller, Wendy Macintosh
Still Photographer - Bill Sandidge
Production Coordinator - Barry Kaplan
Lighting - Imero Fiorentino Associates, Inc.
Videotape Facilities - Compact Video Systems, Inc.
Post Production - E.U.E./Screen Gems Video Services
Film Sequences - Orson Welles
Special Thanks to The Magic Castle
Executive Producer - Joe Butt
A BMR Production
Extended A Columbia Pictures Pay Television Presentation bumper (posted separately here: https://youtu.be/eQ5nbj53U6o)
Coming ON bumper
Beginning of preview for “Women in Love [1969] (recording cuts out)
Take my word for it. Im a magician myself.
This originally aired in 1978. (one confirmed airing on the Los Angeles ON TV station was in December 1978)
This footage was donated to the Museum of Classic Chicago Television as part of the Richard Gough Collection.
About The Museum of Classic Chicago Television:
The MCCTv (FuzzyMemoriesTV) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose primary mission is the preservation and display of off-air, early home videotape recordings (70s to early 80s, mostly) recorded off of TV (in Chicago or other cities now too); things which would likely be lost if not sought out and preserved digitally. We preserve the entire broadcasts in our archives - the complete programs with breaks (or however much is present, for historical preservation. For information on how to help in our mission, to donate or lend tapes to be converted to digital, please e-mail tapes@fuzzy.tv Thank you for your help!")
