It was November of 1966, and they were getting ready to shoot “City” after ten months of my slow writing of the script, and after much duplicity and aggravation, and after Gene had given my work to others to rewrite—betraying the promise to me that if changes were needed, I’d be the one to make them. It was November, “City” was in preproduction, Gene and I hadn’t spoken in many weeks, and he had asked me to come to a meeting so he could confide that the network was out to kill the show.

“I need your help,” he said.

I wasn’t a kid. I was 32 years old, I’d already won the first of four Writers Guild awards for Most Outstanding Teleplay for my Outer Limits script, “Demon with a Glass Hand” starring Robert Culp. I’d been a professional for a decade and had already published 11 of my 62 books; I’d been on my own since I’d run away from Ohio at age thirteen. I wasn’t a kid. But I went for it. What they used to call in the carny, the okeydoke. The hustle. The con.

Gene had an astonishing ability to tell people what they wanted to hear, to charm them into doing his bidding, all the time thinking the chores had been self-generated. I went for the okeydoke and believed (what is generally acknowledged now to be utterly untrue) that there were idiot monsters at NBC who were trying to scuttle Star Trek.

Despite my lingering animosity at what Gene had done, and had allowed to be done, to my script, I volunteered to help save the show. And I came back to the Studio and Gene set me up in one of the vacant offices, and I created The Committee.

I got hold of all the membership lists of the World Science Fiction Conventions from recent years, fan clubs across the country, mailing lists from antiquarian sf booksellers, a huge Rolodex of names. Then I enlisted eight of the biggest names in the world of speculative fiction—from the author of Dune, Frank Herbert, to the legendary author of Slan, A. E. van Vogt—and under a letterhead declaring us The Committee, I sent out thousands of letters asking for the help of fans and viewers, help in persuading NBC to keep the show on the air.

To see a copy of Harlan's letter, visit http://www.ereads.com/cityontheedge

I worked night and day in that little office. I cut the stencil, and took it to the mimeograph room at Desilu where scripts were run off on an old Gestetner mimeograph, and I actually cranked that handle for hours to create the letters of S.O.S. on the reams of light green paper Gene had provided for the purpose.

When I hear all the toots and bleats from those who came later, that they saved Star Trek, my jaw muscles get tense.

But I did it, nonetheless. I went for the okeydoke because I had no idea what was about to happen to me and “City.”