Mr. Oliver. On typewritten page, beginning on typewritten page 12, going through to approximately the middle of page 16 and including a little insert 13-A, I discussed the effect of theatrical performances on the human mind, and the way in which illusions may be carried over from the performance to reality. I begin by using a performance of Hamlet as an illustration, analyzing what happens there. In the following paragraph I elaborate on the point that “A great many naive and unreflective people do confuse actors with the roles they play in the performances.”
And I illustrate that with a story which I hope was amusing about an acquaintance of mine who witnessed a brawl in a tavern between two men, one of whom was convinced that an actress who played effectively the role of the pure and virginal heroine must be pure and virginal herself.
I then went on and using a slightly different illustration but developing the same point, I mentioned a television show about a character called Superman, and what was told to me by a vice president of the corporation that wrote and produced the show, to wit, that although this being was represented as a person who could leap a hundred feet in the air, and could bend a railroad rail with his hands, nevertheless many of the viewers thought that he was real and wrote letters to him asking for his help.
And I then went on.
Mr. Jenner. Shades of Orson Welles.
Mr. Oliver. Except that I believe these letterwriters were not financed so far as I know.
Mr. Jenner. I did not mean to imply that.
Mr. Oliver. I then went on “As another example of the ease with which illusions are induced, let us take one detail in the really spectacular show that was put on at the funeral of President Kennedy. That was a mass performance which for sheer technical virtuousity certainly deserves to rank with such spectacles in the cinema as Cleopatra and Ben Hur. Now, I made it a point to talk to many people who had seen that spectacle on television, and I found that all of them very firmly believed that the caparisoned horse named ‘Black Jack’ in the procession belonged to Mrs. Kennedy and was her favorite mount. That is entirely false.
“As most of you may not know for the national press never reported it, the headquarters detachment of our Army under orders from McNamara’s office began to rehearse for the funeral more than a week before the assassination, and ‘Black Jack’ was an old army horse who was selected at the time of the first rehearsal for the role that he played in the real performance. Incidentally, he was a horse who had never been broken to the saddle and consequently never ridden by anyone. That is what was specifically said by the commander of that detachment when he told his hometown newspaper about the rehearsals.” Perhaps I should add that I did not hear of that statement for several days and by the time that I tried to reach him by telephone the commander had been transferred to somewhere in Germany. I mention “Black Jack” and the impression created on television merely as an example of the attention to detail that makes great and impressive performances.”
In other words, in my speech I am pointing out that the impression conveyed to these many viewers whom I interviewed, and so far as I know, to all viewers; was that this horse was the horse of Mrs. Kennedy, whereas it was an army horse.