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Merton writes Charles Van Doren a letter in response to a statement of apology made after Van Doren admitted he was involved in a game show television cheating scandal. Merton is critical of a society that first put Charles Van Doren on a pedestal and has now delighted in his downfall.
Charles Lincoln Van Doren was the son of famed poet Mark Van Doren, Mark having been one of Merton's professors at Columbia University. Charles became an scholar and professor at Columbia University, as well, but his legacy was later overshadowed by scandal. He was a long-term contestant on the game show Twenty-One. His winning streak was later revealed as a fraud.
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Page 35 of The Road to Joy states that "Merton's letter to Charles Van Doren is included in the final section of this book"; however, the letter was not published there. [Merton's letter to Charles Van Doren was published in The Merton Seasonal within an article on the Quiz Show scandal by Robert Daggy: https://merton.org/ITMS/Seasonal/20/20-2DaggyQuizShowScandal.pdf.
If the person in correspondence with Merton has full text records in the Merton Center Digital Collections, there will be a numeric link to them below.
This Record Sub-Group is not divided into Series and is arranged chronologically.
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