History buffs were offered a rare treat on September 18, 1985 when ABC Television aired a prime-time documentary entitled 45/85. Featuring Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel as hosts, the three-hour program presented a kaleidoscopic view of virtually all the major developments in American history from 1945 to 1985. In an effort to hold audiences who are accustomed to watching Miami Vice and Knight Rider during the principal evening hours, 45/85 applied a fast paced, high-tech format that resembled a cross between ABC’s World News Tonight and Entertainment Tonight. Spicing the presentation were abundant ten-second interview bytes, brief on-the-spot reports, and “flash frame” montages showing the icons of each period.
The overall effect was to leave a snapshot impression of American history. In the effort to cover everything, ABC’s documentary-makers provided only fleeting glimpses of major events and people. Thankfully, the producers gave some focus to the investigation; they concentrated particularly on the Cold War. The format raises some obvious questions. Can this approach make a useful contribution to the public’s understanding of history? Can the viewer learn much from news-style reporting that relies on encapsulated accounts to convey information? Do audiences prof it from seeing a little about everything rather than a great deal about just a few issues?
It is easy to criticize 45/85 for its superficiality; the approach almost reduces historical events to anecdotes. Nevertheless, ABC deserves some appreciation from the historical profession. In an age when nighttime soap operas, violent crime shows, and situation comedies dominate TV programming during the prime viewing hours, attempts to stage a three-hour historical documentary should be welcomed.
45/85 did score some significant achievements. The producers could have whitewashed the story of the Cold War as many documentary makers do, building a subtle defense of most US actions. They did not. Through interviews and commentaries, the program reveals that John F. Kennedy began his leadership in the style of a Cold War Warrior, that Lyndon Baines Johnson used the Gulf of Tonkin incident as “the pretext” to look tough during the presidential campaign against Barry Goldwater, and that former Secretary of State Dean Rusk (whose comments appeared frequently in the show) spoke simplemindedly of “the Block” when referring to the USSR and China in the 1960s.
Indeed, 45/85 provides some interesting perspectives on familiar controversies from people who were close to the centers of power. It shows, for example, Pierre Salinger and David Powers claiming that John F. Kennedy wanted to find a politically acceptable way to take the US out of Vietnam. We see General William Westmoreland acknowledge that he did not appreciate the historic tensions between the Vietnamese and Chinese people when he took command in Vietnam, and Richard M. Nixon admits that he did not have a secret plan to end the war during the 1968 presidential campaign (“That was one of those things of the imagination that always comes up in a campaign,” says the former President). In another revealing commentary, Arkady Schevchenko, the Soviet defector, explains that the Cuban Missile Crisis badly humiliated the Russian leaders and motivated them to achieve military parity. We also see Dean Rusk unveiling his frustrations with the claim that dissenters against the Vietnam War effectively said to Hanoi, “Just hang in there gentlemen, and you will win politically what you could not win militarily.”
A snapshot history can also expose viewers to those familiar quotations that have become significant parts of our collective memory. It is one thing to read the memorable words of history, but our emotions are touched somewhat better when we view the speaker and the setting. 45/85 reveals Barry Goldwater addressing the 1964 Republican convention with the remark, “I would remind you that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice”; it shows Richard M. Nixon declaring, “Well, I’m not a crook”; and it lets us watch Jimmy Carter announce confidently that “We look upon Iran’s strength as an extension of our strength, and Iran looks upon our strength as an extension of theirs.” These quotations have become icons from our recent past, and, as video images, they are particularly poignant.
The study of American history receives no notable boost from airing of 45/85. Television history does not offer a valuable instructional tool for the classroom when it appears in such a rapid-paced parade of disparate visual and audio details. The snapshot approach does work at another level, however, for it provides a marvelous way to stir the emotions of our students and arouse their curiosity about the past. Programs such as 45/85 can serve nicely as stimuli for further reading and discussion.
