And On This Map We See . . .

By John Elson

For diplomats and military strategists, the key question arising from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was this: Could the crisis be resolved without war? For the nation's TV networks, there was a question of almost equal moment: Which would be first to get a correspondent into Baghdad?

The first puzzle remains unanswered, but not the second. In a coup that left its rivals seething, ABC last Wednesday proudly displayed a tape of Nightline's Ted Koppel conducting a softballing 50-minute interview with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. "Scoops are getting harder and harder to get," said Koppel, who had arrived in Baghdad the day before Dan Rather of CBS was , able to enter Saddam Hussein's xenophobic dictatorship. At the same time, to the dismay of his network colleagues, NBC's Garrick Utley was cooling his heels in Jordan. "We are being shut out for reasons we don't understand," said Cheryl Gould, a senior producer of NBC's Nightly News. "It's infuriating and frustrating."

Also on the sidelines were two Amman-based reporters from CNN, which had a special reason for suffering the pang of exclusion: Saddam Hussein reportedly gets much of his information about world events from the network's satellite broadcasts. An American engineer who escaped from Kuwait last week complained that CNN unwittingly caused a near panic among Westerners still there with its grisly prophecies of what chemical warfare would do to the city.

The gulf crisis was a tough story for the press to cover for several reasons. First, Iraq is anything but an open society. Second, the Defense Department displayed the same kind of stuff-the-press attitude it had shown during the invasions of Grenada and Panama. On the grounds -- false, as it turned out -- that the Saudis were reluctant to admit American reporters, Defense officials were slow to activate the Pentagon press pool, which meant that there was no media coverage at all when the first U.S. military units landed.

Complained Michael Getler, the foreign-news editor of the Washington Post: "This Administration doesn't think much of the press, and they don't include it in their planning." By week's end TIME managed to get three reporters into Saudi Arabia, including national-security correspondent Bruce van Voorst, who flew into Riyadh with U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

The limitations on access were particularly tough on the networks, where wars and even rumors of wars send anchors packing their bags to report the story firsthand. During the early days of the crisis, nightly newscasts made do with familiar tricks: stock footage of Iraqi tanks maneuvering and Saddam grimacing, troops in camouflage uniforms on tarmacs of southern U.S. bases, grave-faced reporters standing outside the White House or in front of unimaginative maps.

Meanwhile, both network and print reporters set up shop on the periphery of the main event. John Kifner of the New York Times and Bill McLaughlin of CBS, among others, opted for Cairo as a listening post, because of its good communications and the quality of its diplomatic sources. At times, though, video footage from the Egyptian capital seemed curiously remote from the action -- notably one segment in which Harry Smith of CBS sailed down the Nile in a felucca, chatting about the city's history. Easily surpassing CBS in irrelevancy, NBC later ran an interview with Egypt's aging sex symbol (and bridge expert), Omar Sharif -- complete with clips from Lawrence of Arabia.

Other journalists opted for Bahrain or one of the United Arab Emirates. Under an unwritten rule imposed by their skittish hosts, reporters based there usually gave their stories the vague dateline "In the Persian Gulf." Among the advantages offered by the Emirates, in addition to sleek airports and well-run hotels, was the availability of planes and helicopters for hire.

Usually the most impulsive of network Bigfoots, Dan Rather interrupted a brief European vacation to anchor the CBS nightly newscasts from Amman, Jordan. Frequently clad in a spiffy trench coat, Rather understandably gave perhaps too much emphasis to the role that King Hussein hoped to play as an intermediary. As for Koppel, he began negotiating for a visa to Iraq while covering the Arab summit in Cairo, and later pressed his case during a three- hour dinner with King Hussein. After Foreign Minister Aziz agreed to a one- on-one interview, Koppel and a 10-member ABC crew flew from Amman to Baghdad on a commercial flight. On Thursday, however, Koppel was bluntly "invited" to leave the country. Rather stayed, hoping for an even bigger coup: an interview with Saddam.

In Saudi Arabia members of the Pentagon's late-starting pool chafed against arbitrary restrictions on their coverage. For example, reporters were not to disclose the pool's location, discuss weapons and operational plans or quote G.I.s by name. By contrast, noted Frank Aukofer of the Milwaukee Journal, the supposedly press-wary Saudis allowed pool members inside secret air-defense posts and made commanders available for interviews.

The silent center of the crisis was occupied Kuwait -- silent, that is, to virtually all but the Washington Post, which printed several stories from the city by its Middle East correspondent, Caryle Murphy. Based in Cairo, Murphy had been sent to Kuwait late last month as Iraqi threats mounted, and she was there when the invasion took place. One of her most vivid reports, a firsthand account of life under the occupation, appeared in the paper last week without a byline. Editors will not say how Murphy smuggled out the story or where she is now. No wonder. Full disclosure, and Iraqi soldiers would come calling.

With reporting by Nancy Traver/Washington and Leslie Whitaker/New York