On Television

...On Television PLAINTIFFS AND PONTIFFS BY MARVIN KITMAN American foreign policy in the last 52 years was the subject of a television documentary, "Who Invited US7," presented by the National Educational Television network on February 16 And like the policy itself, the documentary managed to stir controversy Before the date of the telecast, the 168 net station managements seemed unusually mterested in foreign policy The affiliates made the network show them the program m advance not once, but twice Discussion groups at the individual stations prudently debated the advisability of broadcasting "Who Invited US'7", eventually six of net's outlets said, "Nyet " It was considered too incendiary a show for educational tv fans in Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia, San Antonio, Lubbock and Austm, Texas, and Washington, D C I can understand the thinking of management at stations like klrn m Austin They don't even carry President Nixon's press conferences But the Washington situation is perplexing Since foreign policy has the same kind of appeal in the nation's capital that the Mets have in New York, the decision to kill the show must have been a difficult one for station weta In fact, an ad that ran in the Washington Post that morning urged foreign-policy buffs to be sure not to miss the program So it must have been another one of those eleventh-hour crisis judgments the city is famous for What would best reflect on the small uhf station in this unpleasant affair would be to learn that outside pressure was brought to bear —by the Vice President, the Secretary of State, or the Director of the cia Unfortunately, weta categorically denies this I presume the remaining 162 stations m the network carried the documentary, although there is no guarantee The newest of the networks, net still has not worked out a reliable system for obtaining such basic statistics Artistically, foreign-pohcy-as-doc-umentary bombed My rule for gauging the effectiveness of a controversial program on foreign policy is a simple one If the government has not fallen in the next few days, the show could not have been that inflammatory Why were the educational television stations so agitated by "Who Invited US'7" As far as I have been able to determine, what they disliked about filmmaker Alan M Levin's documentary was his revolutionary approach The classic way to make a one-hour television documentary is to present a mass of material on a broad sublet Tn the last minute or so the narrator tells the viewer "You've just seen everything we could find on the subject Now you decide what to think about it " Following this general pattern, television has helped end hunger, poverty pollution moratory labor, cigarette smoking, and the war in Vietnam Levin employed a style that could be called unbalanced The premise for the show was that American foreign policy since 1918 has heen interventionist-and dictated by economic influences The glorious role Dlaved by the oil, metals and other industries m Latin America, Africa, Vietnam, and the rest of the world were well described, though I don't think Levin gave enough praise to the individual corporations involved in this important work Still, "Who Invited US7" is a masterpiece of one-sided rer>orta<*e The National Association of Manufacturers would improve its image bv showing the documentary to various school groups around the country I suppose Levin might have tried to give both sides of the 52-year-old subiect in the 60 minutes available But I don't think he really wanted to Objectivity would have turned this documentary into a CBS Re potts-type show And there are three networks already doing enough of that kind of work It is the reason the average documentary reminds the viewers they want a glass of beer or a sandwich Early in the documentary Levin showed film clips of American troops landing on the beaches of Vladivostok (in 1918), Nicaragua Honduras, Santo Domingo, Vietnam From the moment we heard the musical sound track-an old rendition of "Over There"-it was obvious that Levin was not givmg us history, but an illustrated point of view on dollar diplomacy and imperialism Yet the Washington station offered as its reason for not running the show that it was unnecessarily misleading and "sufficiently distorted" (how much distortion is insufficient7 how much misleading is necessary9) If an educational television station was sincerely worried about the problems of oversimplification, it could have announced after Levin's program, "Tomorrow we will be showing a usia and two Marine Corps films m order to give our viewers a well-balanced study of foreign policy " A filmmaker's nght to make a personal statement in a documentary seems so elementary that one can hardlv believe it would still be questioned That "Who Invited US...

...is being given far too much credit for inventing the onesided approach in reporting There is a rich tradition in American journalism Who will ever forget the great work William Randolph Hearst did in the Spanish-American War...

...Even in the field of documentaries, Levin's work is derivative David Wolper, whose documentaries are popular at the networks, showed that he understood the subjective principle in his most recent tv documentary, "The Journey of Robert F Kennedy" (abc, February 17) It was hard to notice the details of this film through the cascading tears The narration-written by Arthur Schlesmger Jr and delivered in rabbinical manner by John Huston-struck some as an apology for everythmg Bobby had to do in becoming a ruthless politician The conflict between the Kennedys and Johnson was overplayed Certainly, no list of omissions would be complete without mentioning the absence of Teddy Kennedy With the finesse of a Soviet historian, somebody managed to write Teddy out of this family portrait Three researchers worked on the film for nine months How could Teddy have been so completely ignored in a story of his brother's life...

...Rex Poller asked Levin after the comtng attractions from his film ended The long-haired filmmaker-who in appearance must strike conservative educational station managements as the Charles Manson of the documentary field?is the winner of the 1969 duPont award tor the Public Broadcasting Laboratory's "Defense and Domestic Needs Contest for Tomorrow," and an Emmy for abc's "Sleep " He is also a former reporter for the New York Post and press secretary to Senator Harrison Williams of New Jersey-excellent background for anybody embarking on a career of one-sided journalism Still, Levin patiently outlined what brought him to this field "Every morning when I run down to the kitchen for coffee I read James Reston m the New York Times," he explained "Many days his writing seems foppish But what he says in 600 words carries upper-cut He is not a professor or anything, he's a former sportswnter He contradicts himself regularly Yet he has the nght to speak out on foreign policy every morning Sure I questioned my credentials to make this film But Reston encouraged me to try it I'm as much of a generalist as he is If I talked to all the experts in the field, read all the available literature, spent a year doing the spadework, why couldn't I say something about foreign policy...

...I asked a public relations man at the David Wolper Organization why Teddy's eulogy for his brother-at the least-wasn't included "It would have been pointless," he explained "We already had Rose Kennedy covering the same ground " After Chappaquiddick, apparently it was felt that Teddy's presence would mar the mood Wolper and Schlesmger were trying to create in their portrait There is nothing wrong with making a romanticized version of the hfe of Bobby Kennedy for tv, an act of love which sanctifies the man Schlesmger, who is reportedly working on the official biography, comments in a brochure handed out at an advance screening of the documentary " 'The Journey of Robert F Kennedy' is a film not just for the moment, but for the future Through a full portrait of both the public and pnvate life of Robert F Kennedy one discovers something of the tragedy and hopes of America " It may also help Levin discover the key to his future If he is to continue his work in the field of unbalanced documentanes, perhaps he should learn to be more pontifical about his goals...

...would cause trouble seemed probable however when net showed an excerpt of Levin's film to an audience of distinguished critics at the Museum of Modern Art a week before it went on the air The old Department of Defense footage of our boys landing on what seemed like every beach m the world was thrilling And it made me proud that the Pentagon could be so above the journalistic battle that it would cooperate with a nonobiective filmmaker like Levin But the musical background ("Over There," if you analyze the lyrics, says as much about our foreign policy as a spate of speeches by John Foster Dulles) seemed to inflame the critic from the Philadelphia Bulletin "What are your credentials for making such a weighty statement on foreign policy...

...Film is so powerful a medium, the Philadelphia critic explained Nothing can change the impression a one-sided film can make It moves audiences "We should live so long," said Levin I think the producer of "Who Invited US...