Live, From Viet Nam . . .

By James Kelly

Anyone who switched on television last week could not dodge the images, old and new, of Viet Nam: U.S. helicopters retreating from Saigon ten years ago, gaily garbed celebrators parading through the streets of that city, now named after Ho Chi Minh, on the tenth anniversary of the Communist victory. The screen poured forth pictures of life in Viet Nam today: peasants toiling in paddies, cyclists pedaling along busy avenues, children smiling into the camera lens. Yet those scenes did not tell the full story; network correspondents were not allowed free access to "re-education camps," where thousands of Vietnamese remain imprisoned. Nor could they talk with Vietnamese unless accompanied by a government interpreter.

The incomplete electronic mosaic drew the ire of one American viewer. During an interview on ABC's Nightline, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger criticized the "absolutely one-sided account of the correspondents." Said Kissinger: "There is something demeaning about having three networks covering a victory parade over the United States in the city of the country where the victory was achieved."

The flare-up was in response to a monologue by Le Duc Tho, 73, who sat opposite Kissinger during the Paris peace talks in the early 1970s and still serves in Viet Nam's Politburo. Smiling like a kindly uncle but persistently ducking the questions of Nightline's Ted Koppel, Tho thanked "the American people for their support and contribution to our present victory." That smug expression of gratitude, delivered about a war that holds such painful memories for Americans, further galled Kissinger. On ABC's Good Morning America next day, he reiterated his complaint about television's handling of the anniversary. "Millions of people were killed in Viet Nam after the takeover," said Kissinger. "I've heard nobody say that yet."

Even though much of the exhaustive television reporting from Viet Nam was quite good, Kissinger's comments reflected an understandable uneasiness among many viewers about the total picture presented. Correspondents for all three networks did point out the country's odious human rights record, but, of course, there were no pictures to accompany the commentary. Since television relies on images to get its message across, the words about Viet Nam's abuses may have faded from viewers' minds, while the footage of happy Vietnamese lingered.

. Viet Nam staged last week's celebrations with the American press, especially the networks, very much in mind. When NBC News Vice President Gordon Manning approached Hanoi officials a year ago about beaming live satellite reports back to the U.S. to mark the fall of Saigon, he found looks of surprise. "They kept saying that the 40th anniversary of the Vietnamese Communist Party's independence day (Sept. 2) would be important," said Manning. "The tenth anniversary was nothing." Network executives acknowledge that the Vietnamese built up the April 30 parade into an extravaganza of 10,000 marchers and 200,000 spectators because they knew the event would be broadcast on U.S. television. "There was no doubt they played up to us," said ABC News Executive Vice President David Burke. "They're no different from anybody else." The resulting broadcasts spent little time explaining the restrictions that were imposed or discussing the possibility that Vietnamese officials might be using American TV as a propaganda ploy. One notable exception: ABC Correspondent Steve Bell's scrupulously detailed account of the curbs encountered during a tour of a military base.

Two of the networks provided live pictures from Viet Nam, but the costs did not seem worth it. NBC News spent an estimated $1.2 million for its live coverage, including four Today programs, with Bryant Gumbel as host, from Ho Chi Minh City. ABC News paid about the same, mostly for four Nightline shows from Indochina and reports on Good Morning America. CBS decided against live broadcasts, relying instead on taped segments (and spending only about $450,000). Howard Stringer, executive vice president of CBS News, said that his network believed live coverage in a restricted society like Viet Nam's promised to produce little news and, in fact, might distort what was seen. "The purpose of live TV is to show some excitement, but there's not much spontaneity in a controlled environment," said Stringer. "You begin to wonder if the whole thing is public relations and not news."

The live coverage was not so much propagandistic as it was unenlightening. Today's Gumbel, sitting in semidarkness and encircled by a cloud of bugs, spent much of his on-air time introducing taped segments. Koppel's interview with Tho illustrated the perils of live TV: the Vietnamese official was able to ramble on because Koppel was plagued by a faulty communications hookup and could not break into the harangue.

; There were, of course, worthwhile, even admirable reports. NBC's John Hart did a thoughtful piece on a victory parade in Hue, pointing up the ambiguities of the celebration. CBS's Walter Cronkite returned to Viet Nam with Republican Congressman John McCain, a former prisoner of war, and revisited the place where McCain had been shot down and imprisoned. Today offered a moving segment on the plight of Amerasians in Viet Nam, the children fathered by American G.I.s and now treated as outcasts. Nonetheless, viewers could not be faulted if they felt they were seeing the country through a peephole. The coverage of Viet Nam took up more than enough time, but in an important way it was not nearly enough.

With reporting by Thomas McCarroll/New York and James Willwerth/Ho Chi Minh City |