European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 11, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes August 1985 columns David Broder television has been doing its Job All too Well was it just coincidence or a Bow to the Impe natives of this Media age that on the same Day thai president Reagan welcomed Home the americans who had been taken hostage on Twa might the Dale was set for his first fact Tobacc meeting with the Leader of the soviet Union the link Between the two events May not seem bul there is one both will surely be on the highlight reel of the biggest picture stories of in the Era of up close and personal camera the Beirut hostage Story and the Geneva Summit arc sure the television networks took the Twa 847 Story and ran with now they arc feeling the backlash of criticism from the print press and some politicians for the excesses they permitted or abcs John one of the sanest and most honorable people in that lashed Back in rare anger at the suggestion by Washington Post television critic Tom Shales that the hostage crisis had to be wrapped up this past weekend simply because the viewing Public was getting sick of Chancellor was justifiably enraged at the implication that the networks were scripting and programming the hostage drama As if it were a mini series designed to boost yet there is no question that television moved in on the Story with a competitive ferocity that knew no Bounds an intensity that could not have been sustained had the ordeal lasted much at some Many of us watching television crossed the line Between covering the Story and hyping the incessant interviews made no distinction Between the words and sentiments of captives and allies and and implicitly collapsed All questions to the Imp cratic of a Quick it is tempting to speculate that soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev was impelled to accept reagans invitation to a Summit meeting after seeing the Way in which shiite and syrian critics of the United states were Able to use the american television networks to make their propaganda but there is no evidence that was the Case in any Gorbachev already demonstrated such a Mastery of electronic Public relations that he does not not have to take his cues from the likes of Nabih Berri or Hafez his visit to great Britain last before he formally assumed Power in the was a tour do Force which left even Margaret no mean scene stealer theres a warning signal Here for Ronald one of the sources of his strength these last years has been his domination of not just on the National scene but on the International scale As thai Mastery is now being challenged by third world Lough Guys and by the self confident master of communist William Safire preparations for the november Summit Are right on there is something at stake larger than reagans it involves our ability As a nation to think clearly about our position in the what television does superbly is to focus in tightly on a it shows us the scene and the players in a Way that truly does transform a generalized like into a personal drama of overwhelming in the very tightness of its focus its need for those  pictures makes it exceedingly difficult for television to keep things in if you doubt ask yourself what happened during the 18 Days of the Twa 847 Story to the Issue of communist subversion in the Western hemisphere the concern that had caused the Reagan administration so recently to order an embargo of Nicaragua and to lobby furiously in Congress for a revival of Aid to the anti sandinista that Issue just the bombing of an air India which took eight times As Many lives As were at risk in was not nearly As big a television Story because after the first two Days there were no More famine in Afri fighting in even the impasse on the Federal budget suffered similar when Reagan and Gorbachev meet in chances Are they will be accompanied by the network Anchorman and a horde of every smile or frown from the Summit ers will be magnified by endless repetition on the to screens into a metaphor for soviet in we cannot reduce International relations to the closeup pictures on which television the problems Are More Complex than footage of a pistol wielding Hijacker or a freed hostages embrace of his Jailer can we cannot think straight about foreign policy if our emotions Are being jerked up and Down by the zoom lenses focusing on a family grief at an Arlington grave or the Grin on the face of a consummate Kremlin what the critics of television Are saying is not that the networks did their Job badly but All too our senses were and our minds were drowned in the the Reagan Gorbachev sum Mit threatens a similar unless there Are some serious second thoughts by the people who control these magnificent and maddening communications Mech c Washington Post leaders must of ride the currents of history six months into our civil president Lincoln came up with what seemed to him a humane solution to the divisive Issue of Black slavery in he proposed to provide states with Money to Pur Chase slaves from their owners for the purpose of free ing under this after at the most 40 slavery would slowly disappear no dictatorial abolition would be needed and for those Northern workers worried about an influx of cheap Black Lincoln informed Congress he might ask for Money to buy land in Central America or where the freed slaves could be lincolns notion of what was called compensated emancipation and colonization was rejected by Union loyalists in the slave states of Kentucky and and the War went americans who condemn South Africa plans for tribal pushing Blacks into outlying areas away from White centers of would do Well to remember that such a deportation option has Long come naturally to Whites who want to maintain White control of their South african leaders would add that Lincoln had to Deal with Only a 12 percent Black minority in while their nonwhites outnumber Whites 5 to when americans lecture them on the vice of White minority Many South africans wonder Why we do not denounce other countries where a minority they have a Point about our selective Syrias Hafez Assad and his Alawize shiites Are a 10th of the syrian who tyrannize and occasionally massacre great numbers of the majority but no protesters want cameramen to record their arrests in front of the syrian embassy in in Burun Uganda and tribal and religious minority Rule is infinitely More oppressive than in South and Black majorities suffer terrible deprivation and heavy but we see no resolutions in the United nations to impose Grant the fierce disinclination of haves every where to hand Over what they have to and Grant that Many White South africans View apartheid not As a pleasant but As a necessary social evil to maintain political control Over the uneducated and the granting All we cannot fail to respond to the wave of demonstrations and tragic shortsightedness of the stepped up repression by the purpose of american policy is to induce the majority of the White minority to Speed its accommodation to the quickening Pace of Black sooner or Blacks will participate in Power better that their leadership be nonviolent and evolutionary in Ameri can Martin Luther not Stokely Carmi Chael so that nobody gains the sort of one tribe total control Robert Mugabe is seeking in Zim whats the Best Way for us to dissuade prime minister Botha from continuing to radicalize millions of Blacks president reagans constructive engagement policy has been a worthwhile providing incentives for Progress rather than joining the chorus that includes totalitarians and racists who take such glee in calling South Africa totalitarian and but our policy is no longer attuned to the rising pressure we must disengage ourselves from Bot has crackdown to show that error has Conse for engagement to be disengagement must be that Means rhetorical More in sorrow than in rather than lame Reagan defences it also Means modest sanctions to symbolize our holding Back serious economic pressure like Dis invest lest we lose All identity papers and Long Empris one shamefully inadequate education these humiliations Are this Century equivalent of like Abraham Lincoln in Many of us have been looking for a Middle balancing All miss ing the undertow that presages a thunderous wave of Only nine months after putting Forward his plan for the gradual Purchase and deportation of Lincoln left Public sentiment shift to a need for a cause morally greater than and announced his upon military to abolish slavery in the rebellious the velocity of change changes movements ipod Forward for then pick up sudden leaders must ride those currents of history or be swept c new York times