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Washington, DC February 8, 1960.

Room 1334 of the Longworth House office building was a small but imposing space with high

ceilings, brass chandeliers, a huge mural called America at peace.

Around a semicircular day, a sit-in-line congressman, members of the House subcommittee on legislative

oversight, all middle-aged men, many with graying hair and horn-rimmed classes, shuffling

papers and conversing in hushed homes.

They're here for the first full day of the Congressional Peola hearings, an investigation

into whether the radio industry has been corrupted by greedy DJs taking bribes from

record companies in exchange for playing their singles.

The committee chairman, Arkansas Congressman Orrin Harris, bangs his gavel, eager to get

the hearings underway.

It's an election year, and this can bring in positive press.

They are actually doing something about the menace of rock and roll.

General counsel Robert Lischman, a white-haired 56-year-old Harvard educated litigator, calls

his first witness, a clean-cut DJ from Boston named Norm Prescott, also with horn-rimmed

glasses and neatly trimmed brown hair.

It looks about as far from a rock and roll DJ as Lischman himself, which is to say, he

looks believable.

Lischman paces slowly back and forth.

Mr. Prescott, you left employment with station WBZ in Boston in July 1959.

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