Family Theater: The Spy

Family Theater presents Robert Stack, Jack Gregson, and Lillian Bier. From Hollywood, the Mutual Network in cooperation with Family Theater brings you Robert Stack and Lillian Bier in the Spy by James Fennimore Cooper. To introduce the drama, your host and narrator, Jack Gregson.

Thank you, Gene Baker. Tonight, Family Theater honors the anniversary of George Washington's birth by paying tribute to the unsung heroism of those whose courage and loyalty to Washington in his struggle for independence, went unrecognized. The spy by James Fenimore Cooper tells the story of such a man.

His courage was known to a very few. For success in time of war hangs by the thin thread of secrecy. Thin because secrecy and security are forever open to violation. On the surface, it could not be doubted that the spy captured near Tarrytong, represented a real threat to the American cause. For the order for his arrest had issued from General

Washington himself. After prolonged search through the valleys of New York, Captain Duncan Hollister of Washington's Continental Army had captured him as he left the protection of the British Lions and held him in a country in for transport to the headquarters at West Point. And then word was brought to Captain Hollister that the spy had escaped. Who was in charge of the prisoner, Sergeant?

My orders would have doubled the guard. It was double Captain Hollister. Then how was it possible for him to escape? You must have gone through the door to the basement room. But it was locked.

He couldn't have opened it without a key. We found it open, sir, in the prisoner gone. Give the yorda to Mount Sergeant. I'll cheer man, Sergeant. But sir, won't we pursue the spy into the woods?