On Television
KITMAN, MARVIN
ON TELEVISION By Marvin Kitman The Heat in the Kitchen GDavid Schine and I were in B the U.S. Army together, protecting the country against Communism by taking basic training in the 47th...
...Polishing off the dish of lobster and bay scallops smothered in sauce americaine, Mrs...
...But what held my attention was a shadowy figure at the end of the McCarthy team bench who looked a lot like one of the present Senators from New York...
...New Jersey time), it's so quiet in my house you can hear a souffle drop...
...He depressed a partisan audience at Eugene's, the political cabaret on New York's East Side, by reading us excerpts...
...So we heard the Swiss chef cry out memorably in English, "Whose whistling...
...Walt Rostow...
...One can only imagine the power struggle that must have taken place in the corridors of the Senate between these two men, neither of whom is known for his ruthfulness...
...Dave, as we called him, was in K Company and I was in M Company, across the parade grounds...
...I think it's dirty politics to hold a politician's past against him...
...I didn't have much of an appetite for the Japanese visit when Mrs...
...The wonderful thing about her work on educational tv is that she encourages people to try things they normally would be unsuccessful at...
...The producers of the special made a real effort to inform the public that there are two McCarthys...
...Like drying lettuce...
...Then I heard that Senator Kennedy's staff had been supplying the press with fact sheets containing these excerpts...
...Child is the titular leader of the boy-I-can-identify-with-her-be-cause-she's-so-klutzy school of cooking...
...Actually, I can't be sure that Dave missed the hearings, which dwelt for days on the special treatment he allegedly was receiving as McCarthy's left-hand man...
...and the White House housekeeper, who confessed her job was keeping the place clean...
...She pats it back together efficiently, and reassures us, "It will taste even better this way...
...This was the historic confrontation, most of which abc regrettably missed...
...Or was he smiling at somebody behind Joe's ear...
...When an apple charlotte starts to sag, she doesn't burst into tears as most women do...
...The instant slow-motion replay, used in covering sports events, is another basic technique de Antonio neglected...
...As sentimental as I feel about my old Army buddies, I can't truthfully say that I watched the special just to see Dave when he testified...
...By the time Mrs...
...she asked, as the White House chef explained how he made his vol-au-vent...
...She broke the tension by grabbing a piece of pastry off a tray...
...I'm just dying to know what you're going to have for dinner tonight," she announced to White House chef, Henry Haller, who was in the midst of cooking a state dinner for 190...
...His photo was on screen an awfully long time while McCarthy insisted that the Secretary of the Army was smiling at Dave and attorney Joseph Welch argued that the Secretary was smiling through him...
...For a tense moment, I thought Mrs...
...Ambassador to Japan, Alexis Thompson...
...Neither of us was part of what an abc press release for a recent special made out of the Army-McCarthy hearings described as the "20,000,000 Stunned Americans" who watched them on television in the spring of 1954...
...Can I have a little...
...He didn't throw her out, I guess, because Mrs...
...No disclaimers were made about there being two Bobby Kennedys...
...Technically, there is little that can be said for producer-director Emile de Antonio's handling of this early Kennedy television appearance...
...the White House florist...
...Yet just an hour before I saw another special, abc's "Our Time in Hell," in which ex-Marine host Lee Marvin described the story of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Guam, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, as seen through the eyes of combat photographers...
...This may seem like a minor point...
...Child once demonstrated on her regular net program, "The French Chef...
...Before I discuss the National Educational Television network special, titled "White House Red Carpet," I'd like to say a few words about a great American institution...
...Mrs...
...The official title was indicative of this effort: "The Confrontation Between Senator Joseph McCarthy and Attorney Joseph Welch on the Occasion of the Historic Army-McCarthy Hearings Before a Senate Investigating Committee and 20,-000,000 Stunned Americans in the Spring of 1954...
...Next I swing the lettuce holder around my head vigorously, slopping water all over the kitchen, as Mrs...
...Child would say, "If you can't stand the heat in the kitchen, get out...
...When she goes on the air at 6:30 p.m...
...Still, the drama transcended the poor production...
...On the lawn, where the honor battery made ready to deliver "the traditional 19-gun salute," she observed, "It's terribly important that the guns are pointed the other way...
...Child licked her fingers and said, "Awfully good...
...It makes me sick...
...But I wouldn't criticize Julia Child any more than I would my mother...
...For all I knew, the limousine that picked him up in the bivouac area at lunch time was taking him to the nearest tv set...
...I cut the heart out of a head of Romaine, Boston or Iceberg, then put the leaves in a French lettuce holder and dip it into cold Tuning water...
...Mrs...
...Is this fair...
...Chef Haller explained that he had been cooking this meal for three days, and he really looked bushed...
...Before I review Bobby's role in the hearings, as portrayed in this documentary, I would like to raise a point of order...
...The most unforgettable second in the hour-long special was a darting look Bobby gave Roy...
...Child rushed into the White House with her charming mixture of innocence and Cambridge chutzpah...
...There were flaws in the way Mrs...
...So I assume there is nothing wrong with using out-of-context material...
...Child is bigger than him...
...Child conducted her hearings at the White House...
...In fact, I was considering shutting my eyes whenever I saw Bobby's face on camera to avoid being unduly influenced in the primaries...
...The impact of this moment in history could have been heightened, it seems to me, if the director had frozen the action whenever Bobby Kennedy was on the screen...
...I'm going to eat one of your pastries," she said, poking suspiciously at 190 noisettes of lamb, the main dish of the evening...
...Child is famous for her ability to sell anything from paella pans to the cookbooks of ex-White House chefs by mentioning them in passing on her syndicated cooking show...
...My specialty in the kitchen is drying lettuce...
...Child's kitchen because it is a disaster area...
...He is in the wings while Roy Cohn, who looks remarkably like a Jewish Bobby Kennedy, is in the spotlight...
...Child burst into the kitchen, I had forgotten all about Pearl Harbor again...
...Several related events helped me resolve this moral dilemma...
...He didn't give his recipe for currying favor...
...Army together, protecting the country against Communism by taking basic training in the 47th Infantry Regiment at Fort Dix...
...First I heard Jack Newfield, the Walter Lippman of the Village Voice, claim that he had dug up Eugene McCarthy's old voting record...
...He is plainly unhappy and uneasy about his association with Joe McCarthy...
...Only once or twice did Bobby manage to flash the famed quarter smile...
...I have watched Kennedy many times on television in recent weeks, but rarely has one of his performances had the emotional depth of the bit role he played in this special...
...If the Kennedy forces continue circulating out-of-context material about the Senator from Minnesota, it would only be fair for the McCarthy people to circulate pictures of Bobby Kennedy smiling at Joe...
...Also, Mrs...
...The day Julia barged into the White House with her cameras, the premier of Japan was also visiting...
...The camera focused on Bobby for only fleeting seconds...
...Marvin's narration was spiced by the occasional cries of extremists: "Japanese drink Marines' blood...
...We all watch the action in Mrs...
...Child continued grilling Chef Haller and his kitchen cabinet until it was time for the staff assistants to load the dinners on the serving wagons...
...In brief interviews she fricasseed such dignitaries as Stuart Symington Jr., the protocol chief...
...De Antonio, of course, was limited by the cameramen's 1954 judgment about Bobby's political future...
...Another historic confrontation took place on television recently: the Julia Child-White House hearings...
Vol. 51 • May 1968 • No. 10
