QBVII - a great novel, and a superb mini-series

I too had not seen this telepic since its first-run. It has lost none of its impact.A joy to watch Ben Gazarra in top form.

They were showing their contempt for him??

The book was indeed wrong in the amount of surgeries.
And I didn't see the movie, but in the book Cady says in a part that Kelno should be rewarded with a 1/2 penny coin.

To change his testimony at that point would have opened him up to a charge of perjury. Had he used that explanation all along, it would have been one thing, but he'd always insisted that either there was no general anesthesia available, or that he had no qualified people to administer it.

But, you do make a point. Since Kelno knew that there was general available, why didn't he use some other reason all along? Either an oversight on Uris' part, or Kelno simply didn't believe he'd done anything wrong.

If this isn't coming too late to explain:

The real lawsuit on which this is based, one of libel against Uris, the author of the novel, QB VII, took place 3 years after Eichmann's trial. Eichmann's trial established, amongst other things, the fallacy of just following orders or being forced to do this or that. There is a direct tie to this in for the scenes with Edith Evans' character, Dr. Parmentier. This is the character who, though Catholic, had emigrated to Israel. She testified about the devastating electric shock tests that were actually conducted at Auschwitz and used significantly in the Eichmann trial. When she reveals her breakdown at the results of one such trial and refusal to go on, she clearly states that no retaliation occurred. Perhaps this was because there was a shortage of doctors. Whatever the reason, it ultimately revealed what a reprehensible coward Kelso was and completely undermined any defensed for either following orders out of fear or any other reason, such as his own bigotry.

To me, the half-penny award, though also apparently factual in the real case, seems self-explanatory. A verdict for Cady's side would not nearly be so powerful and clear, so resounding an indictment of Kelso.

Ironically, Adam Kelno was the more sympathetic character. Abe Cady was a cad to the women in his life, a disrepectful son, a non-observant Jew (until after the death of his father), and really not a very nice person. Kalno had sought in some way to atone for the horrors he had perpetrated by using his medical skills after the war to benefit the less fortunate.
There is a novel called "A Thread of Grace' by Mary Doria Russell, in which a character embodies a similar dichotomy: Doktor Schramm, a Nazi deserter who drinks to relieve his guilt over sending thousands of disabled and mentally disadvantaged people to their deaths. In the hope of redeeming himself for his crimes, he puts his life at risk to save the lives of and rescue Jews from their Nazi persecutors.
His counterpart is Renzo, an atheist Jew who, haunted over the collateral damage he inflicted as a bomber pilot in Abyssinia in WWII, lives a dissipated life and has become a daredevil who hopes to lose his life, and hazards it also to rescue Jews, but who is a far less sympathetic character than Doktor Schramm who hopes in spite of almost insurmountable odds, for redemption. Renzo hopes only to lose a life and a guilt that has become unbearable to him.