Broadcasting Telecasting (Jul-Sep 1959)

N I KIT A PUTS ABC IN DOGHOUSE Alleges distortion of tv tape interview; denies radio communications for one day One of broadcasting's brightest scoops ended on a sour note Thursday (June 30). The scoop: the tv recording of the Nixon-Khrushchev debate in the American exhibit in Moscow. The sour note: ABC's getting squeezed in power politics when the Soviet premier accused that network of distorting its translation of his remarks. Vice President Nixon and Premier Khrushchev were touring the exhibit in Moscow Friday before last when they came upon the Ampex-RCA exhibit of an American tv studio. They were asked to step before the color camera, make a few remarks, then see them played back on tape. But during the demonstration they began their now-well-documented debate. The camera kept turning, but the two politicians ignored it in the heat of their argument. After Phil Gundy, Ampex International president, reminded them that they were being recorded, they finally cut it off. Mr. Gundy escorted the pair to the tape machine, where he guided Mr. Khrushchev's hand in manipulating the controls to play back the recording. It was then that Mr. Nixon and the Russian Premier agreed that the recording be played for the American people, but with the proviso that it be fully translated and unedited. The Ampex representative immediately rushed the tape to his hotel and started making all the arrangements for a quick flight home. He made it back by Saturday morning (the debate was at noon Friday Moscow time.) Mr. Gundy actually "smuggled" the tape out of Russia. He wrapped it in a dirty shirt and covered it with business papers to avoid a customs delay. The tape went unnoticed. On arrival at New York's Idlewild Airport Mr. Gundy was informed that the State Dept. wanted him to hold off. The diplomats had agreed that the tape would be shown simultaneously in the U.S. and the USSR. But after many exchanges of phone calls between the networks, the State Dept. and Moscow, the networks agreed to release it despite official hesitation, and did so at 1 1 p.m. Saturday (with repeats Sunday). ABC Denied Radio Circuit • Despite the rhubarbs over official release all went well until last Thursday. Then ABC correspondents accompanying the Nixon party in Russia were notified they would be denied use of radio communications for 24 hours as punishment for the alleged distortion of Mr. Khrushchev's remarks. Both CBS and NBC were offered radio facilities, but both declined, saying they would not take unfair advantage of a competitor in such a punitive affair. (All three networks had been sending their dispatches by The Celebrated Debate as Recorded on Tape They talk on as tapes and cameras turn Ampex' Gundy Home with hot tape telephone lines last week, and ABC. along with the other two, continued to get its news out that way.) Each of the three networks had arranged their own translations of the Nixon-Khrushchev tape the preceding Saturday. ABC denied that its version differed from that of the other networks, although there was some difference in technique. CBS's commentator read the translated remarks simultaneously with the premier's appearance on the tape, NBC's lagged behind the video, ABC's sounded somewhat ahead of it. An ABC spokesman said State Dept. monitors had verified its translation. ABC's John Daly, who with Edward Morgan was one of two ABC correspondents denied the wires Thursday, broadcast his reaction via telephone back home that night: "If you can hear this it is a poor substitute for a broadcast circuit from Siberia promised by the Russians after three days of wrangling with Mr. A.J. Popov, acting head of the press section of the Foreign Ministry. That circuit was taken away from ABC one hour before broadcast time in Sverdlovsk in Siberia because Mr. Popov finally got a copy of today's Siberian edition of Pravda. He found that Nikita Khrushchev criticized ABC for its handling of the KhrushchevNixon video tape recording at the American exhibition in Moscow last week in a speech at the Dniepropetrovsk machine building plant two days ago. My colleagues from CBS and NBC accompanying Vice President Nixon were told they could still use the broadcast circuits and — bless them — they told Mr. Popov in blunt language, "No thank you. We don't know the facts of the telecast at home." Neither does Mr. Popov. He just BROADCASTING, August 3, 1959 49