Citizen-Spy

54 The Irrelevant Expert
Doors is to be presented as a semi-factual series of Intelligence cases that relate
importantly to national security, we are interested in purely fictional stories,
which we, of course, can then relate to some roughly comparable cases that
already exist in government files.” Still, the show’s “semi-factual” foundations
were crucial to its credibility. 6
Almost an anthology series, the only recurring characters were the admiral,
who appeared briefly in the opening and closing credits, and the fictional Commander
Matson, who served as the program’s narrator, sometimes engaging in
brief conversations with the admiral and filling in narrative ellipses once or
twice throughout the episode. In “The Photographer,” for example, the protagonist
is an expatriate American filmmaker who, disenchanted with his Communist
handlers in Prague, turns his skills toward producing a covert documentary
about the “Warsaw Riots”—likely a fictionalization of the Soviet invasion
that squelched the Hungarian revolution in 1956. At the end of the episode, Commander
Matson discusses the case with the admiral back in Washington, offering
a commentary that seems to say as much about Hollywood of the period as
it does about international relations: “We’ve certainly learned, Admiral, that
motion picture film can be employed not only for entertainment purposes, but
for vital top secret operations and counter-espionage.” Though the series design
called for each episode to hinge upon a U.S. agent who “sees all, knows all, and
does all,” the real sources of authority in the program were the admiral and the
mediating figure of Matson. 7
But while Rear Admiral Zacharias’s public persona as authenticating expert
was crucial to the show’s truth claims, his role in the production of the show
was a source of considerable internal debate. Compared to someone like Herb
Philbrick, Zacharias was a bona fide spymaster and his credibility was beyond
question, but his direct participation in espionage activities had largely ended
with World War II. In adapting his book, the producers continually sought to
relocate the espionage activities to the present, adapting stories to the context
of the late 1950s, addressing such contemporary issues as the onset of nuclear
proliferation and Soviet relations. 8 A paid consultant, Zacharias sought to
remain at the center of the program as the key authenticating authority. Initially
he was contracted simply to lend his name to the show and to appear without
speaking while the fictional Commander Matson introduced each episode in
voiceover. As the show developed, however, he was interested in taking over the