Few people know that KLZ-TV Channel 7 in Denver played a role in one of the earliest satellite broadcasts in history. On July 10, 1963, CBS News presented “Town Meeting Of The World”, the first instaneous hookup among nations utilizing the Telstar communications satellite.  The participants were former President Eisenhower in Denver, Sir Anthony Eden in London, Jean Monnet in Belgium, and Heinrich von Brentano in West Germany with Walter Cronkite moderating from New York. 

Merwin Smith has some recollections of the broadcast:

I just found in my old files the  information on the Telstar broadcast I was involved in at Channel 7 in  1963.  It was a historic first.  We had  many CBS engineering types swarming our studio and security on the day was heavy for those days because of the appearance of President  Eisenhower.  The Telstar satellite was not in synchronous orbit then, so there was just one approximate 90-minute “window” during which we could connect.  CBS brought in the rather complicated Eidophor rear projector to show the other participants with the President in the studio.  The day before the live broadcast we did a live test during the window, with me sitting in the chair to be occupied by President Eisenhower and chatting with Walter  Cronkite.  I remember Cronkite’s telling me to say hello to Hugh Terry. 

I was PD at Channel 7, KLZ-TV, at the time.  We were in the old building.  I acted as a sort of liason between the CBS crew and our staff and participated in the previous day’s test, sitting in Eisenhower’s place in the studio while the tech people checked the audio and Eidophor projector.  Eisenhower got his fair share of time.  I have no idea what the costs to CBS were.  During the broadcast there was a small studio audience. I stood by just outside the studio to get many rolls of 35 mm black and white film to get to our darkroom for immediate processing.  I’m trying to remember the name of the pool photographer who was from one of the newspapers.  I recall he had a couple of cameras around his neck and took many, many pictures.  The security was fairly tight for those days.  We had little colored lapel buttons from the Secret Service that according to color designated where in the station one was allowed to go.  Mine let me go anywhere.  It was a really exciting, wonderful experience.