We're going to hear from a lot of people this evening. They are a very distinguished panel. But right now I would like to bring out Jamey Hecht, my co-host for this evening. Jamie, would you come out here.

Jamey Hecht, Ph.D. -- Co-Host

Why does so large a group of people believe that the violence, the bereavement and the grief inflicted on September 11th which have had such permanent and ongoing consequences, some of which we can't foresee, was avoidable? That it wasn't a bolt out of the blue, some cosmic blow against humanity that should cause us all to bow our heads, remember the fallen, and then go back to business.  Or as we were urged to do at the time here in New York City, to go out and shop. Why have the questions posed by the families and by the independent researchers, some of whom you will meet tonight, and so many of you, gone unanswered? In the next few hours we shall embark upon a difficult journey. And we ask you to reconsider the horrifying events of September 11 in a new and troubling light.

This journey is quite difficult, it requires that we re-examine some of our most basic beliefs. This requires overcoming a special kind of inertia which we're rarely asked to move. And yet, the rewards are a change from anxiety to awareness, from passivity and quietism to a more full participation in the most urgent issues of our time. Diminishing unnecessary harm, and bring closer together for a world of possible safety and creativity and understanding.

Ed Begley: If this is your first exposure to this material, you may feel very uncomfortable with that, the challenge to confront your prior assumptions about September 11. If you've already been exposed to these issues, you will see that there are many things that you will want to look at. We have a large group of gifted researchers, some of them have been questioning the official story of 9/11 since the very first day after the attacks. The questions these researchers have raised have been the subject of countless articles, discussions, initiated by citizens in their homes. And there's been official silence by the commercial media about these events. But we've had a tremendous impact on what people have thought. Last month, a representative poll commissioned by Zugby found that about half of the city's residents did not believe that the attacks came by surprise. 41% of New York residents.

Jamey Hecht: That's 49.3% of residents of New York City, and 41% of New York State residents. And the question is, "How could that view be so pervasive?" Why have our questions been ignored. And we believe we owe it to the victims and their surviving family members to conduct a searching and fearless examination of the events of 9/11 from a number of different angles, and to pursue it wherever it leads. We know of no better way to honor the fallen than to marshal our forces -- intellectual, emotional -- and confront what repels us. Dark implications of evidence which it's all too easy to put aside. We hope that as you draw your own conclusions, we can aim together at a more complete account of these events.

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