Unscheduled Program

Robert Maxwell Jones Jr., 26, stood quietly in the rear of the elevator one morning last week as it went up to the 45th floor of Cincinnati's 48-story Carew Tower. The elevator operator noticed nothing about Jones except that he was the only Negro in the car, that he was hatless and wore a tan gabardine topcoat. Jones got off on 45, walked up the winding stairway to the observation tower atop the building. The tower door was locked, but he found a window just above the 47th floor and jimmied it open. He climbed out, stepped gingerly along a three-foot ledge to a parapet at the corner of the building, took off his topcoat, folded it neatly on the ledge, sat down and lit a cigarette. A window washer nearby called to Jones, "I know how you feel, boy. Come back." Said Jones: "I got troubles."

He lit one cigarette off another, occasionally waved his arms, and once climbed over the ledge and hung there by his hands. Police and firemen, called to the building, pleaded with him, but if they tried to inch forward, Jones cried, "I'm going to go!", and his would-be rescuers stood back.

Some 5,000 people gathered in the streets to watch, but the drama was not theirs alone. A Cincinnati housewife, tuning in WCPO's man-on-the-street radio show, heard the reporter describing Jones's flirtation with death. All over town, as the word spread, sets clicked on.

Television was there too. From a hill two miles away, WCPO-TV trained its cameras on Jones, brought him into view with a zoomar lens. The station rushed a mobile unit to the building, and there other cameramen aimed their lenses and waited. WLW-TV, six blocks away, put a TV camera on a fire escape, fed the scene to stations in Dayton and Columbus. WKRC-TV. eight blocks away, went on the air with closeups.

As thousands hung over their TVs and radios, rescuers worked on. At the 21st floor ledge, men spread a net, like fishermen in a sea of air. Jones's father and sister, and a priest, the Rev. Paul Huber, joined the rescuers on the 47th floor.

"I see you have a rosary," Father Huber called. "Surely you know God loves you. Pray with me, my son." Jones's father said: "Son, come and let us touch your hand and we'll pray for you."

Housewives at their TV sets saw Robert Jones walk slowly to the window where his father stood. They saw a rescuer jump to the ledge and grab him. They saw him dragged into the building as he screamed, "I don't want to die! I don't want to die!" They saw him jabbed with a hypodermic and tied into a straitjacket.

On the 21st floor, the firemen folded their net. Down in the street, the crowds drifted away. But throughout Ohio, some 350,000 people kept their radio and TV sets tuned in. It was 10 a.m. and about time for the morning soap operas to begin.

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