Miami Hurricane, August 22, 1958

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The Miami
Hurricane
Vol. XXXIII
University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla., August 22,1958
No. 32
By PEG POWELL
Hurricane Stall Writer
A fantastic hoax by two University of Miami students that fooled thousands of people— and eventually would have taken in millions—was exposed last night by The Hurricane.
Sanford Fink, 21-year-old Miami Beach sophomore, who was passing himself off as a “visiting French disc jockey from Paris," and Joe Sugarman, 20-year-old junior from Chicago who posed as Fink’s pen pal and sponsor were exposed by radio station WMET’s disc jockey Sam Gyson on his 11 p.m. program in cooperation with Hurricane editor, John Garcia.
Fink, whose pseudonym was Marcel Voitnre, and Sugarman had appeared on Gyson's program August 13 and fooled him as they had The Hurricane when interviewed by Larrie Schmidt for a feature story.
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dance was Sanford Fink. Garcia then assigned Schmidt to investigate.
Telephone calls to the registrar’s office and the office of the dean of men where student records and background information is kept, produced information that the “visiting Parisian” had never been to France.
Instead, he was bom in Chicago, 111., on July 11, 1937. At the time “Marcel" was supposed to have been
FINK
SUGARMAN
attending Sorbonne University in Paris, he was attending Central YMCA High School in Chicago.
The two Phi Sigma Delta brothers planned the hoax in an attempt at nation-wide publicity to advance Fink's ambitions in the field of radio-TV.
They wanted to appear on as many local and national radio and television stations as possible with their goal being an appearance on Channel Vs. "I’ve got a secret” program
It all began last Monday when Sugarman telephoned Schmidt and asked him if he would be interested in interviewing his pen-pal, the French disc jockey.
An interview was held the next day and The Hurricane was taken in by “Marcel Voiture’s” French accent while speaking English. The feature story was to have appeared in today’s issue.
However, The Hurricane became suspicious when Photo Editor Hugo • Wessels recalled taking a picture of Voiture at a student dance a month earlier. Only Voiture wasn’t French.
A check with the UM photo lab revealed the picture—and the hoax. The name of the student at the
Fink had told The Hurricane and DJ Gyson that he worked for Radio France in Paris and that he came to America to visit this country and his pen pal and to study at the University of Miami this fall.
But Fink had already attended UM’s first summer session and is presently attending the second summer session. Before coming here he was enrolled at the University of Illinois. He is a major in radio-TV, but prior to the hoax had never been on a radio or television program which made his role as a Parisian disc jockey extremely vulnerable.
Gyson played along with the hoax last night for a few minutes before confronting the boys with the truth to which they finally admitted after trying half-heartedly to bluff their way through the exposure.
Gyson had collaborated with Schmidt in working out details that brought the collegians unwary to the night program for a repeat interview and their downfall.
Explaining their reasons for the
New Text Written By UM Faculty Set For Fall Orientation Classes
Men's orientation classes will be taught this fall from a textbook written by members of the UM faculty.
The new book, "Introduction to College," was published this April and has been in the making for three years.
Dean of Students Noble Hendrix, who wrote the forward to the book, said, “I am very proud that members of the faculty, through hard and continuous work, have brought forth this text.”
According to Dean Hendrix, the book is the latest step in the orientation curriculum at UM. Three years ago, when Hendrix joined the faculty, the teachers had only a few weeks to put together an orientation course. They accomplished this with the aid of a mimeographed outline.
The following year a manual, based on the outline, and supplemented by material gained in teaching. was brought out This fall the textbook will be used.
“This is not the final step,” said Dean Hendrix. “Constant revision is necessary. In fact, I would re-
Offical Notice
All graduate students will be required to have appointment cards for registration this fall. They will be available Sept. 2 In the registrar’s office.
commend no orientation textbook that was over five years old.”
“Introduction to College” is a 168-pagc book, illustrated exclusively with pictures of the UM campus. It will be used not only here, but in many other colleges and universities across the nation.
The book is an attempt to bridge, for the entering freshman, the gap between high school and college. It tells him the basic philosophies of orientation and tries to introduce him to the way of life that goes with higher education. It helps him ^ee his way to planning his career and life philosophy and shows him how to study effectively.
Chairman of the writing team was Dr. Calvin Daane, who left UM last year to teach at Iowa State University. His co-authors were Dr. May A. Brunson, dean of women, Dr. Ben E. David, dean of men. Dr. Peter Vander Linden, senior educational counselor, and Dr. Paul K. Vonk, assistant dean of Arts and Sciences.
Women will not use this text this fall. When it came out another text “Getting the Most out of College” for women was already ordered. It was written hy Margaret E. Bennett, psychologist at Pasadena City College. “Introduction to College” will cost $2.95, and “Getting the Most out of College,” $2.75. Both are required textbooks.
farce, Fink and Sugarman said it. was strictly a publicity stunt to help Fink in his Radio-TV career. Sugarman admitted to being the mastermind of the plot, but said! he had nothing to gain from it personally.
“I am interested in engineering,” he said, “but Sanford has such great talent that I hated to see it go to !
waste.”
“He is a great actor and mimic and can do impersonations of French, German. Italian, Hungarian, and Irish accents that would fool even a native of those lands.
“This whole thing was my idea— and although we have fooled thousands of people—no harm was meant bjr the hoax.
“It turned out to be a tremendous adventure for both of us. An adventure that brought us romance and love, perpetual excitement. loads of fun and much publicity. We also learned a lot about the American people."
Fink, dropping his French accent and happy that the whole thing was over, said “Americans treated me wonderfully as a foreigner. Any body who says Americans aren’t kind to their foreign visitors is nuts! Waitresses were especially patient and kind and helpful when they
found that my English wasn't so.
good.”
They said they first started fool- j ing people when they broadcasted to many countries on Sugarman’s ham radio set which he has installed in his auto.
“When we talked to a ham in Germany I used a German accent and when we talked with an Englishman I spoke with a British accent,” Fink ' said. “And he fooled them too,” chuckled Sugarman.
“Then Sanford and I decided to go into the masquerade seriously," Sugarman continued, “and that's when we called The Hurricane. After the interview with their reporter and news editor we contacted Sam Gyson at WMET.
“I had been on Mr. Gyson's program once before, several months earlier, in connection with a UM engineering function and considered him a highly literate and intelligent man—a man I did not think would ask Sanford a lot of personal questions that might have put him on a spot.
“Fortunately, Mr. Gyson, like so many other people, answered a lot of his own questions to save us embarrassment or exposure. Sanford had never been to Europe and I had ' only been to Paris once so we knew
absolutely nothing about Parisians or the French way of life.
“Since we never had any idea what kind of questions people were going to ask Sanford about France, he had to make up answers right on the spot.
“He was in a couple of real tight jams when Schmidt and Mr. Gyson —both of whom have been to Paris —asked him questions concerning Paris, but Sanford resorted to evasiveness and pulled us out of a rut.
‘That’s another nice thing about Americans—they don’t press you on answers. Whenever someone wanted to practice their French on Sanford, he told them he had promised me he wouldn’t speak French while in the U. S. so that he could improve his English.
"Eventually, had we been successful with our hoax and appeared on the Tve Got a Secret' show or the Jack Paar Show, we were going to write a book on the whole thing.
"Several times we were certain that the hoax had been discovered but we just kept on bluffing and bluffing. We knew that someone would catch on eventually, but we hoped we could carry the farce as far as possible before being discovered.”
Improved Dial Phone Service Ready For Operation By Sunday
By MARY STRAUS
Hurricane Staff Writer
A dial phone system, covering all of main campus, will begin operating Sunday.
This means thitT dormitory students will no longer have to wait for a switchboard operator to place phone calls. They can call any local number by dialing “9” and waiting for a dial tone.
The new system will serve 1669 phones, including 450 in the women's dorm now under construction. It can be expanded in time to 2500 stations.
“This new phone system will be the finest of any college in the country,” said Vice President and Treasurer Eugene Cohen. “It will be better for all the people on main campus.”
“During the school year,” said senior Rita Zalud, “I’ve had to wait as much as half an hour for an operator.” Operator Lila McGee said the delay is often due to student conversations tying up the operator's time.
With the new phones, one switchboard will handle all main campus
HEY MAN. dig that crazy bird! Photo editor Hugo Wessels caught these curious onlookers in their precarious spots as they watched an Army rocket at Cape Canaveral leave the launching pad—destination moon. The rocket didn't make it, blowing up at 50,000 feet, but Wessels did and came up with this unusual picture.
calls. This means since administrative calls are mainly in the daytime, and dorm calls at night, there will be more lines available where they are needed at both times.
Nine operators will man the switchboard, handling only incoming calls on MO 1-2511, formerly assigned to the dormitories. The switchboard will be open from 8 a.m. to 11:45 pm.
Diverting equipment has been installed, so that any attempts to call long distance will automatically revert to the University switchboard.
"Now that we will not be busy with outgoing calls,” said chief operator Sylvia Knoll, “we will be able to give better service to those people calling the University.”
“Trunk lines," she said, “will stiU be held up by outgoing calls, but they will not involve the operator.” Mrs. Knoll asks that students please limit the length of their calls so ae to make the lines available to all.
Installation costs, estimated earlier at $150.000, have run about $160,000, according to Southern Bell Telephone Co.'s Coral Gables sales engineer, Leon Mikesell.
To make the new system possible, about 16,000,000 feet of conductor cable has been installed. The change over is expected tomorrow at midnight.
2 Psych Professors To Speak At Meeting
Two members of UM's psychology department will present papers at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Washington, D. C. next week.
Dr. Robert M. Allen, professor of psychology, will speak on “The Place of Projective Techniques in the University Curriculum."
Dr. Carl Williams, associate professor of psychology, will speak on “Resistance to Extinction as a Function of Reinforcement Schedules in a Skinner Box for Humans." His paper is based on studies of learning in college freshmen.