A Video Chronicle of Our Times

By James Kelly

Like the other networks, ABC has been gradually cutting back on documentaries, but the ones it does produce are likely to be blockbusters. These have included entire evenings of prime time devoted to such subjects as education and atomic power. This Wednesday, ABC News presents a masterly three-hour chronicle of America's role in the world during the past 40 years, focusing on the cold war and U.S.-Soviet relations. Eight months in the making, 45/85 is a judiciously edited video parade filled with rare film footage, some of it broadcast for the first time. It also includes on-camera recollections of some 75 "witnesses," ranging from Stalin's interpreter to Ronald Reagan and his three White House predecessors.

The program, with Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel as hosts, shows how Washington's overriding policy goal of containing Communism has affected a wide array of decisions, including the Marshall Plan and the 1977 decision to hand over the Canal Zone to Panama (an example to Third World nations that the U.S., not the Soviet Union, is the better friend). By advertising in local newspapers, ABC was able to find color footage of Churchill's 1946 visit to Fulton, Mo., where he delivered his famed Iron Curtain speech, and of General Douglas MacArthur in Tokyo.

Salted throughout the narrative are the reminiscences of decision makers and ordinary people suddenly caught up in history. What makes these "witnesses" so powerful is the personal flavor they impart to well-known events. Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk tells how, as an Army colonel in Washington in 1945, he faced the problem of dividing responsibility between Soviet and American troops in liberating Japanese-occupied Korea. Looking at a map, he saw no natural geographical boundaries, so he simply chose the 38th parallel. Richard Nixon remembers how Dwight Eisenhower never publicly criticized John Kennedy for the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, but privately "he used to grit his teeth (and say), 'You know, Dick, I would never have approved a plan without air cover.' "

One dramatic moment comes from tapes made by Nikita Khrushchev after he had been deposed as Kremlin leader in 1964.* The glee in Khrushchev's voice is evident as he recalls toying with Washington after the Soviets shot down a U-2 spy plane in 1960 and captured Pilot Gary Powers. The U.S., thinking the plane had been destroyed and the pilot killed, initially insisted that the aircraft had been on a weather reconnaissance mission. "After they . . . got thoroughly wound up in this unbelievable story, we decided to tell the world what had really happened," says Khrushchev. Eisenhower, who had recorded his recollections in 1967, is heard explaining his side. "When I saw what a terrible mess this lie had made . . . I just said, well, now, look, here's the truth . . . When you get your fingers caught in the cookie jar, there's no use in pretending that you were out in the stables somewhere."

Jennings and Koppel put events into the context of U.S. cultural history by referring to collage boxes filled with such props as Hula-Hoops and the Star Wars robot Artoo-Detoo. Since the program concentrates on the U.S., it tends to highlight American mistakes and triumphs rather than those of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the cold war themes are handled with sophistication and balance. ABC's 40-year journey offers fresh, sometimes offbeat details about many of the terrain's landmarks and a knowing sense of how they shaped the modern world.

FOOTNOTE: *The oral reminiscences came into the hands of Time Inc. in 1970 and were the basis for the volume of memoirs Khrushchev Remembers. Time Inc. donated the tapes to Columbia University, which allowed ABC to broadcast them for the first time.