He never stopped retelling that story.

And I kept seeking the definitive rebuttal to that lie, for thirty years.

Well, all else in this essay notwithstanding, I finally found that single definitive bit of evidentiary support.

It came into my hands only as this book was going to press in its White Wolf edition. It can be found on page 31 of a large, coffee-table-style trade paperback titled WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE: A History in Pictures (Pocket Books, 1994, and updated 1996) by J.M. Dillard.

The rebuttal comes from a source so unimpeachable, that standing alone it should consign to outer darkness the last echo of Roddenberry’s wretched untruths about the creation of “City.”

The rebuttal comes from the man who truly first conceived Star Trek, who had his “Wagon train to the stars” line filched by Roddenberry, who wrote “Where No Man Has Gone Before” as the successful pilot when NBC rejected Roddenberry’s first pilot script, “The Cage.” The rebuttal comes from Samuel A. Peeples.

Here is what appears on that page 31:

However, Roddenberry massively rewrote the original script, much to Ellison’s consternation. In an interview with Tom Snyder on the Tomorrow program, Ellison commented, “…they had mucked it up badly. It took six or seven years before Gene Roddenberry and I even spoke to each other again.”

Writer Sam Peeples concurred. “I thought Harlan’s version of his script that won the Writers Guild award was far better than the script that was shot…”

And then J.M. Dillard proceeds to repeat Roddenberry’s bullshit assertions that he rewrote me, and that “City” won a Nebula, and that I “rushed up on stage” and took credit for his aborted, stunted, thalidomide-baby script-by-committee. But since it was a Hugo, and it was at a World SF Convention, and since Roddenberry wasn’t even there, he didn’t know if I rushed up and took credit or not.

In truth, as you will find it reported in Locus, the newspaper of the science fiction world, I made it very clear to those at the ceremony—and anyone who cared to read of my remarks in their many published reincarnations—that it was a wretched, half-witted, abortive version of my lovely script that they had seen on television, and I accepted the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation “in memory of the script they butchered, and in respect to those parts of it that had the vitality to shine through the evisceration.” I never took credit for what they had done to my work, only to what they could not kill, though it took a gang-bang of them to do it!

But now, back to the original time-line.

Even after repeated phone conversations between us in which I reminded him that I was hardly the sort of guy who would take these endless canards with a smile and an aw-shucks. And every time Gene would figuratively slap his forehead and laugh and say something like, “Oh, gee whiz, Harlan, yes, now I remember that it wasn’t like that at all! It must be my memory! Gee whiz, Harlan, I must be getting old and senile! I promise it won’t happen again.”