Thanks for remind me that Ms. Fabe's book was where I first heard that story - I couldn't remember when.
A personal comment - the reasons for Password's phasing out at CBS may have been many - a lack of promotional support from the network, the inevitable fade in the ratings in a long-running show, the fact that the show hadn't really had an update of any kind since the theme was changed early in the run - maybe it would have helped to have the fresh setting and rules that it got when it started on ABC.