Television: Closed End

David Susskind sometimes irritates people. His manner—on his TV discussion program Open End—has a kind of aggressive omniscience whether he is talking about alcoholism or politics. But he attracts top-level guests from all fields, and his program has a high and merited national popularity. By last week, however, he had irritated one man too many times. Tired of fighting with Susskind over the weekly choice of subjects and guests, Bennet Korn—president of Metropolitan Broadcasting's WNEW-TV, where Open End originates—fired him.

"This flibbertygibbet Korn is a real creep," says Susskind, "a squingy little man, a cultural...