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The original "War of the Worlds" radio script, including ultimately failed efforts by CBS censors to tone down the realism, fetched $143,000 at auction. The script, sold at Sotheby's auction house in New York Wednesday, had sat in writer Howard Koch's file cabinet for years after the 1938 Orson Welles production panicked millions of listeners convinced the world was being invaded by Mars. "I had a private offer of $60,000. They advised me to take the gamble. I guess it was the right gamble," Koch said. Koch adapted the script from H.G. Wells' book for the Mercury Theater.