Stop the War

Bill Leonard's eyes snapped with anger. "It's a preposterous piece," he complained, "preposterous." Leonard, senior vice president of CBS News, then sat silent in his makeshift Miami Beach office, loathing William Shannon's New York Times column one more time.

Shannon's article was the talk, the grumble of the networkers at the Republican Convention. Shannon had flung a custard pie at the screen: "On CBS the ordinary viewer trying to watch a political convention sees so much of the anchor man and his star reporters that the program might well be called Walter Cronkite and His Friends...Likewise, the NBC coverage might be better known as the David Brinkley Show...I think the time has come to ban the media mob from the floor...Then the viewers could enjoy the game--excuse me, the convention--as it is actually played in all its sweet, boring interludes."

TV executives acted like high priests struck at the altar. William Sheehan, Leonard's opposite number at ABC, found the Shannon piece "terribly wrongheaded." Richard Wald, executive vice president of NBC News, said, "I'd like to see the New York Times cover the podium and nothing else." Douglas Kiker, an NBC floor man, generously included William Shannon as "one of my respected friends. And the piece is fulla crap. Absolutely fulla crap."

At the National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT), the Public Broadcasting System's answer to the network coverage, things were a bit more sanguine. No grumble, no pique. For one thing, the New York Times sometimes acts as PBS's fan club ("Surprisingly more effective than the far more elaborate and strained productions"). For another, PBS planned to try exactly what Shannon suggested. It set out to cover the convention's official proceedings only. PBS's two-convention budget was $290,000; the commercial networks', about $20 million. Rather than compete, PBS was manifestly trying to make an asset of a liability. Announced NPACT President James Karayn: "We will be the network of record."

That left the other three networks in their usual positions: first, second and third. Just before the starting gun sounded, John Chancellor gave his NBC crew final instructions as if to answer Shannon with action: "One: when you're on the floor, think of yourself as writing the running A.P. lead. And two: keep moving." Move they did, eddying and circulating around the delegates, largely without effect. The convention seemed to move in slow motion; so did the newsmen. As is their custom, each NBC reporter had the entire floor to patrol. CBS split the hall into quadrants; ABC divided it into geographical districts. Despite these refinements, the reporters soon seemed indistinguishable. They could have changed networks without disturbing the viewer's concentration or interest. NBC's Garrick Utley at one point was reduced to questioning David Eisenhower about his next Navy cruise (it will be to Europe). CBS's Mike Wallace prefaced a tough interview with Maurice Stans by reminding listeners that the Republicans do not much want to talk to reporters about the Watergate incident ("I will continue to be unavailable," said Stans by way of unilluminating confirmation). Eric Sevareid and Theodore White traded profundities on the differences between the parties (White: "It's as if there were two cultures." Sevareid: "A basic difference in human nature").

Even NBC's Cassie Mackin, the aggressive, counterpunching starlet of the Democratic Convention, had little to do or say this time around. When Monday's session ended, ABC's Frank Reynolds confessed a paralyzing ennui: "I'm bored, and I'm kind of ashamed of it. I mean, it is the national convention of the party in power."

Equal Space. The TV mob was not alone in tedium. "If newspapers are so smart," wrote Washington Bureau Chief Jack Germond of the Gannett chain, "why have they sent so many people so far to cover so little?" The answer was plain. News organizations, like the networks, wanted to be ready in case promised demonstrations got out of hand, as they did at the 1968 Chicago convention. There was also the feeling on some papers that they owed the Republican Convention equal space vis-`a-vis the Democrats.

Jules Witcover of the Los Angeles Times saw the uneventful convention as a harbinger of the G.O.P. campaign to come: "Slick, efficient, and orchestrated to the most minute detail...security conscious...closed to the prying eyes of the press in most important elements." Nicholas von Hoffman of the Washington Post was more scornful. He criticized the Republicans for hiding their Doral Hotel headquarters behind a triple barrier of security, and for installing paper shredders and "burn bags" to destroy evidence of what went on inside. Von Hoffman concluded that what they were really concealing, both at the Doral and at their clubby cocktail parties, was their indecent wealth. "We media people," he complained, "aren't allowed to see the Republican richies except in carefully controlled situations when they can put on their one set of cheap clothes and pretend to be one of us." Ever the radical in his writings, Von Hoffman confessed to a colleague that he was actually a lifelong Republican who had voted for Nixon in 1960 and 1968. This time, however, the G.O.P. is too rich for his blood.

In search of something fresh to write about at the convention, reporters often went to ludicrous lengths. Timothy Leland of the Boston Globe wrote that he had carried an ominous-looking parcel to within three feet of Pat Nixon without being stopped by security agents. Miami Herald Reporter Eleanor Hart had less luck; she wrote sadly that she had turned up nothing of substance in her undercover work as a ladies' room attendant at convention hall.

Such coverage-padding gimmicks were unavailable to TV. ABC, which traditionally plays catch-up ball throughout conventions, figured this one right. They summarized the afternoon session for 30 minutes, made some money with reruns, then went back on the air at 9:30 p.m. The other networks stayed with the convention from invocation to benediction.

Far more interesting were the offscreen lunacies that are part of every convention. On Monday night, burdened by electronic equipment, Walter Cronkite failed to rise for The Star-Spangled Banner. His booth, clearly visible over the heads of the delegates, received criticism from a patriot on the floor. John Chancellor and David Brinkley, whose booth was huge, were prudent enough to rise. Harry Reasoner and Howard K. Smith escaped criticism; they could not be seen from the floor. Instead, they were stashed some several hundred yards away in a windowless room backed by a special screen called Chroma-key, which gives the viewer the impression that Howard and Harry are seeing it all live and in color. The same device was employed by NPACT'S commentators, including Robert MacNeil, who once warned of "the power of a medium such as television to make appearance seem to be reality."

The Cronkite imbroglio had scarcely subsided when the gaffe and goof baton went to John Chancellor. Observing the Youth for Nixon claque, he commented sourly, "At Democratic Conventions we've seen Mayor Daley of Chicago pack the halls with members of the Sixth Ward sewer workers. What we've seen tonight seems to be the Republican equivalent." The G.O.P. delegates did not fancy themselves as stand-ins for Art Carney, and NBC's switchboard was flooded with complaints. Chancellor later harrumphed an apology, and the next day a huge poster was displayed on the floor: ENTHUSIASTIC SEWER WORKERS FOR NIXON.

Naughty, Naughty. Throughout, the convention played for the cameras. The entire affair was so tightly organized that many observers began to sense the presence of a detailed script somewhere. It surfaced on Tuesday morning when mimeographed copies were accidentally delivered to the networks and to the BBC. G.O.P. messengers were immediately ordered to retrieve the scripts. The BBC people refused to yield theirs. "Extraordinary," commented Charles Wheeler, BBC'S chief American correspondent, as he examined the document. "How do you Americans say it? Really a screw-up." Republican Committee Staffer Kit Wisdom tried to grab the pages from Wheeler, then from Christopher Drake, a radio correspondent. "Naughty, naughty," Drake admonished her, clutching the document to his narrow chest. "Naughty, naughty, naughty." Half an hour later, Wheeler beamed his message to Europe: "Here is the script for today, complete with pauses for cheers and applause. The nomination of Richard Nixon begins at 10:05. Then there is a five-minute spontaneous demonstration. The President's nomination is completed, and there's a ten-minute spontaneous demonstration with balloons. [This script is] the one unexpected event of the convention so far."

No Stars. During the fight over future delegate apportionment, the networks were virtually identical. The dispute itself, predictable from the start, was given gross coverage as the networks attempted to pump some suspense into the conflict. Av Westin, executive producer of ABC's Evening News, later confessed, "If you're covering fires and it is the only fire in town, you cover it, no matter how small."

Even the convention "scoop" by David Schoumacher of CBS had a spurious taint about it. During the evening he stood at a closed door inside the hall. The President's big policymakers were in there, he announced, "hammering out the final details on the rules fight." Out of mike shot, he said he thought the story "passed for news under non-news conditions. I wanted to open the door on camera, but I didn't have the nerve. What if I found five janitors playing cards in there?"

The "street teams" did little more. Wary of their reputations as agents provocateurs in Chicago in 1968, the networks played down the protesters, even during the gassings and mass arrests. Inside the hall on Wednesday night, delegates, wiping their eyes, were interviewed by Mike Wallace, who assured the home folks that no delegates were hurt.

By the convention's end, there were few broadcasting prizes to give away. Among them:

> The Doris Day Coyness Award: To Harry Reasoner for acknowledging the Spiro Agnew-David Brinkley contest for the vice presidency ("One vote for David Brinkley, a wry commentator on a minor network"). And to Walter Cronkite ("One vote for David Brinkley, otherwise unidentified").

> The Clifford Irving Most-Interviewed Award: To Charles Percy for answering the same question ("Are you a candidate in '76?") 4,000 times.

> The Chutzpah Award: To ABC's Sam Donaldson for pushing Governor Nelson Rockefeller aside so that he could interview the Agnew family.

> The Dan Rather Irrelevant Question Award: To Dan Rather for his interrogation of Mrs. Nixon ("I just wondered if the acoustics are as bad down here as they were in the hall").

> The Much Ado About Nothing Award: To Av Westin, who hooted, when ABC Correspondent Tom Jarriel shoved his way to President Nixon at the Marine Stadium, "ABC scores again! That's exclusive, baby."

In broadcasting, it is not necessarily the sharpest wit but the pointiest elbow that often gets the prize. At the convention's end, when the preliminary rating report showed ABC with the greatest gain, Bill Sheehan beamed like a cheerleader. "We're going to be No. 2 by the end of the year. We're breathing down NBC's neck. We're basking in momentum." At NBC there was private worry: "Does the Chancellor-Brinkley team have enough--I don't know --enough sex, enough viewer appeal?" asked an executive. "We just don't know."

At CBS they had given up guessing about Cronkite. It was not impossible for any of the correspondents to imagine the conventions in 2000 that nominate Governor Joseph Kennedy and Senator David Eisenhower to compete for the presidency. "Over to you, Walter," says the astronaut in the satellite. And Walter goes on, with his stately pauses, his patented regionalism ("The p'leece are speakeen"). "End the war, end the war!" the protesters are shouting, but no one pays attention. For this war--the one over ratings--is the never-ending one. And after the balloons are popped, the papers swept up and the correspondents dispatched, that is still the name of the game--excuse it--the convention.

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