Does anyone know who some of the formal writers for this show were besides Howard Koch? I know Houseman and Welles served as editors/rewriters, but was anyone else involved?

I listened to the show's adaptation of Dracula last night (which was its first broadcast). Naturally, to fit the story into a one hour broadcast, they had to ruthlessly hack out huge chunks of the original story. However, the story suffers little and manages to keep the feel of the original novel that the movie adaptations just can't get. This is probably due to the fact that radio is more narrative dependant and this fits the format of the novel better, with it being a collection of journal entries and such. Of course, unlike so many movie adaptations, the show's writers managed to mostly suppress the urge to "improve" the story (*cough* Coppola *cough*). The only real problem I saw was that it really wasn't made clear why Harker went to Castle Dracula.

In his interviews with Peter Bogdonavich, Welles seems to spend more time discussing "Dracula" than the rest of his radio work. It was a conscious effort to follow the book rather than the more popular (at the time, I guess) stage version(s). I
haven't listened to this in some time, but now my interest is piqued. BTW, has anyone heard the broadcast done the week AFTER "War of the Worlds"?
I just got a copy of it. The Mercury condensed "Heart of Darkness" and "Life With Father" in the same hour! But the weird thing is, there was no mention of the halloween hoopla. Maybe CBS forbade
it.

Welles' presentation of "The War of the Worlds" is by far the most daring and most talked about radio stunt ever performed....originally intented as a Halloween prank, the whole thing went berzerk when people (who had tuned in late) thought an actual Martian invasion had occured. People were hurt fleeing to their basements, one man shot a windmill...thinking it was a Martian machine and the players had to be escorted out of CBS by police because of the lynch mob waiting outside. Welles not only apologized for the stunt on the air on CBS, but also on nationwide radio.
Thanks to Mr. Welles, there are now laws prohibiting such stunts from ever being performed like that again.

Ever hear the radio interview he did with HG Wells? He said that he repeatedly told people during the broadcast that this was not real.

He did not!

According to The Battle Over Citizen Kane (great program, BTW), they cast often went through the books they wre adapting, crossed out the parts they weren't going to adapt, underlined the parts to be read, and wrote some naration (etc.) in the margins.

I don't see how today's general public could be taken in by a modern "Worlds" program if only because it would HAVE to be televised, and because people
are 100 times more media-savvy and cynical than in 1938. I assume there were those who thought the Trade Center events were faked!
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If one listens to the "Worlds" broadcast, there is of course the opening, during which the announcer
gives his usual spiel about "the Mercury Theater on the Air" in an adaptation of H.G Wells' "War of the Worlds" and near the half-hour there's a station break where listeners are once again reminded what they're listening to.

I heard that some people who listened to it and didn't know what was going on committed suicide.

The thing is, most people who freaked out had started out listening to "The Chase and Sanborn Hour," which was Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy's show (a ventriloquist act on the radio!). It was the highest rated show on the radio (it had a 34.7 share whereas Mercury Radio Theatre had a 3.6), but when they hit their first commercial break, some listeners "flipped" to see what was on another station--twelve minutes into "War of the Worlds" and long after the announcement that it was a dramatization. Further reports demonstrate that anyone who freaked out was well into freaking in the streets before the next commercial break where the fact that it was a dramatization was announced again.

This is according to "The Complete War of the Worlds," by Brian Holmsten and Alex Lubertossi, which takes as its source for the above a study published in 1940 by Princeton professor Hadley Cantril.

After listening to the War Of The Worlds on the Citizen Kane DVD it's easy realise how easy it was to mistake the play for a real broadcast. It's only when an interlude is announced & the narrative switches to a past tense view on how the Martian invasion was defeated would most people realise it was just a drama.