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WATTENBERG AT LARGE: Poland
Ben Wattenberg interviews a Polish Communist Party spokesman, who says that Solidarity is going too far in being confrontational and that is a reason why the communist economy isn't working efficiently, that strikes are costly lost labor; he denies that socialism is inherently flawed, the problem is that there was never a perfect removal of dependence on Western Capitalism in the economy; they have a good-natured debate over this.
WATTENBERG AT LARGE: Poland
TLS/MSs of Poles waiting in food lines in downtown Warsaw. MSs of empty market shelves and meat coolers. TLS/MSs of Polish farmland, farmers tending fields; VO discusses Poland's deficit in food production; CU tomatoes in crate; MS/CUs of farmer's market, people selling produce from their private plots (tomatoes, cauliflower, strawberries, and meat); VO discusses farmers' resentment of collectivization of agriculture and state farms; MSs of farmer & his family riding in a horse wagon at market, then on country road. Panning LS of flat field in Central Poland; MSs of wheat stalks in field.
WATTENBERG AT LARGE: Poland
MS of adorable boy following his father, a farmer, as he gets into a car; MS farmer driving his small car to a meeting of Rural Solidarity (Agricultural Worker's Union), the farmer's branch of the trade union. MS/CUs of meeting, people wearing "SOLIDARNOSC" t-shirts and sitting under large banners with the red Union lettering. Ben Wattenberg interviews the farm unionist inside a greenhouse; unionist says that private farmers need to be able to get tractors and equipment for Poland to be self-sufficient in food, that Communist farm policy was inefficient, drove farmers out of the country, and used harmful price controls. MSs woman & child working in greenhouse, tending to crops. Mr. Wattenberg interviews a senior Solidarity official about the agricultural problems and bad economy in Poland; he says the problem is complex, discusses the crisis of authority that Solidarity poses to the alleged "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" that Communism claimed to be.
WATTENBERG AT LARGE: Poland
MSs of Soviet Tank Command near Polish border; TLS of Soviet tanks on patrol; MSs Soviet Soldiers in training, jumping out of a helicopter, performing maneuvers, fording through river; LS helicopters in flight; MSs tanks. MSs of Polish Army soldiers marching in dress formation & standing at attention in Warsaw Parade; C/As Poles looking on; MSs soldiers performing rifle drill. MS of LECH WALESA being carried through streets on shoulders of fellow Solidarity strikers. MSs of Solidarity banner and Solidarity meeting.
WATTENBERG AT LARGE: Poland
MS street performer-- an organ grinder-- on street in Warsaw; a closer look reveals that it has pictures of Lech Walesa on it. MS of Solidarity trade union leader LECH WALENSA speaking in Polish, with subtitles, saying that the idea of Solidarity is much more than a union, it is a demand for the "little people" in Poland to be heard and respected, which Communism had promised to do; he says that Solidarity needs help from the West; a woman and her child (wearing a Tom & Jerry t-shirt) offer him a bouquet of flowers, which he gladly accepts. MSs of Lenin Shipyards workers on the job. MSs Solidarity press workers in print shop. VO closes with the observation that the Communists don't really represent the workers. MSs of rural Polish farmers in fields; MSs nuns, schoolchildren in Warsaw; audio of a Polish pop song; MS young woman smelling flower on shore of river.
WATTENBERG AT LARGE: Poland
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VIETNAM MEMORIAL
Titles for 1983 program on the Memorial.
VIETNAM MEMORIAL
LSs of rows of gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery. Veterans Day speech delivered by Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger We come together today in this very sacred place to pay tribute to the brave American Soldiers, and Sailors, Airmen and Marines who served their nation in her time of need. And at this year s Veteran s Day, our nation recalls in a very special way, the veterans of a painful war that we ve tried to forget. The veterans returning from Vietnam were not welcomed with speeches and flowers and parades, as we rejoiced the heroes of earlier conflicts. (intercut with American flag pan to Vietnam Vets and other onlookers.) The Vietnam veterans returned to find demonstrations and a nation divided by an unpopular war. And now, in two days, we will dedicate a memorial. And on its black granite walls are inscribed the names of all who have fallen in Vietnam. And there are few memories more painful than those associated with the Vietnam War. Yet, there can be nothing more important at the heart of America that we always remember those who have sacrificed so much for our country in that conflict. But we also learned a terrible lesson from that war. We learned that we should never again ask our men and women to serve in a war that we do not intend to win. Crowd cheers and a Sousa March plays. MS of two WWII veterans dressed in uniform, holding flags and rifle. MCU audience waving small American flags (patriotism, nationalism).
VIETNAM MEMORIAL
African American Marine Corps Vietnam veteran telling his unit numbers from Vietnam says that when he came home he was spit on, and his folks thought he was crazy. He's happy to be alive and glad to have a memorial to his friends who died.
VIETNAM MEMORIAL
Caucasian Vietnam vet saying his family was veterans for three generations, and the Vietnam veterans did the same job when they were called.
VIETNAM MEMORIAL - Hearing of Veteran s Administration officials with Vietnam Veterans, most angry about delays in approving Agent Orange compensation
Traveling shot of the Capitol Building. High angle TLS people entering rotunda in Capitol Building. Some of these people are in wheelchairs.
VIETNAM MEMORIAL - Hearing of Veteran s Administration officials with Vietnam Veterans, most angry about delays in approving Agent Orange compensation
A hearing of V.A. (Veteran s Administration) officials with Vietnam Veterans, most angry about delays in approving Agent Orange compensation, held in Congressional hearings room in the Capitol Building. Panning shot inside hearings room. Doctor from the Veteran s Administration (VA) addressing a group of Vietnam Veterans, I came here to listen, not to talk. And I just want to tell you that I ve heard you, I ve heard you loud and clear. I don t get up to offer any excuses. It s quite obvious in many areas whatever we ve done, it s not been nearly enough. And I would only plead with you to not lose faith in your health care system. It s yours, you know. When all of this is over, and we do find the answers, and your needs are taken care of, you re still going to need that system. I too am very proud that I am a Vietnam Veteran. And I too have been exposed to Agent Orange. Again I say, I ve heard you, I ve heard you loud and clear. We re going to keep trying.
1982 - VIETNAM MEMORIAL - Veteran's Rant
Pan from cars driving on city street to a banner outside a building that reads: "National Salute to Vietnam Veterans". Adult Caucasian men entering building. Adult Caucasian male Vietnam veteran, meeting with fellow veterans, saying that he's become a villain because he flew a plane that dropped Agent Orange; another veteran makes it clear he has nothing against him, that all veterans need help. One of the veterans asks the man to right down the name and address of a fellow veteran in Georgia. Adult African American veteran comes in to brag about his infantry division over the others; shows card to the camera.
1982 - VIETNAM MEMORIAL - Veteran's Rant
Vietnam veteran discussions gets more tense as the adult Caucasian male veteran, who dropped Agent Orange, gets defensive, saying that fellow veterans don't like him for dropping Agent Orange. Fellow Vietnam veterans, Caucasian and African American, assure him that they don't hold it against him. That they're all Vietnam veterans who carried out orders in a war. Man criticizes the United States for taking this long to even acknowledge Vietnam War veterans. He says anyone legitimately injured should get aid, but he's been getting up every day and going to work, and that people who are demanding aid should remember that a lot of people died in the war (he's angry that some veterans are turning the memorial of the dead into a stage to protest). Man shakes hands with fellow Vietnam veteran who tells him; "I love you, brother. Take care of yourself."
1982 - VIETNAM MEMORIAL - Vietnam Veterans
Adult Caucasian male Vietnam veteran and adult Caucasian woman walking through convention, past an empty VFW booth. Adult Caucasian man playing piano at convention; adult Caucasian male veterans hanging out or walking through convention area.
VIETNAM MEMORIAL
At scene of dedication of Vietnam Memorial, Washington DC. Two Vietnam Veterans having a heated debate, an African-American veteran saying that the war shouldn't be a source of pride and that too many blacks died versus whites, while a Caucasian vet angrily accuses him of raining on the parade, evidently the dispute is resolved.
VIETNAM MEMORIAL
Veterans singing America the Beautiful, some have their arms raised. WWI veteran holding up a folded American flag.
VIETNAM MEMORIAL
Caucasian woman telling a black veteran that she's proud him, regardless of the war's politics. She says that the veterans did what they were told to do and the nation should be grateful. They swap stories about a mutual acquaintance in the Medical Corps who was killed. One old white woman tells a story to two African-American vets about her son being killed four days after writing her a letter. Then says she never wants to see her 16 year old grandson go to war, that she hopes there's never another war, that it's hell.
VIETNAM MEMORIAL
Formation of Vietnam veterans marching next to the Vietnam Memorial Wall. MS of Sioux Indian (Native American) veterans marching with banner.
VIETNAM MEMORIAL
People checking names on the wall. CU of pictures left as tribute at base of wall. CU veteran saying it was a mistake for him to enlist, but he still couldn't believe the way he was treated when he got home. MS crippled veteran on crutches. Four U.S. Army Huey helicopters flying in formation past Washington Monument.
Wattenberg At Large - Irving Brown. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan discuss American foreign policy.
Host Ben Wattenberg. Senator, the history of the Unites States in post WWII Europe is indeed a fascinating one and a successful one. Yet today we see apparently the rise of a new anti-American feeling there and apparently a new wave of Soviet influence. Has it all turned sour? What is going on there? Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D New York). Simply, there has been a shift in the balance of power. The Soviets are now perceived as the dominant power in Western Europe in just the way the United States earlier was perceived and indeed was the dominant power. Think about the certain kind of absurdity, you re seeing demonstrations all over Europe about missiles, right? But the demonstrations are about the missiles that aren t there, about the American missiles which will be deployed under the NATO agreement in response to the deployment already of the Soviet missiles, in particular the SS20, a mobile missile with three warheads, one a week is being deployed. Now you don t see any demonstrations about the missiles that are there, only the ones that might be coming. Doesn t that tell you a lot just in itself?
Wattenberg At Large - Irving Brown. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan discuss American foreign policy.
Host Ben Wattenberg. Are you suggesting then that the demonstrators are demonstrating against America rather than the Soviet Union because they re afraid of the Soviet Union and that s what a balance of power shift, not only steel and missiles but men s minds as well? Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D New York). What did Dr. Johnson say about the prospect of hanging, it wonderfully concentrates the mind. And you re beginning to see in Europe the results of the sustained Soviet military buildup that began after the Cuban Missile Crisis and which in fact they told us they were going to do, and the corresponding decline, relatively of American power. But there s something behind this that you have to go back to fully absorb and that is the sustained animus against the United States in European elites. It s always been there. And why is it there? Well, the fact is that American popular culture is now universal. It first swept to Europe, it s now swept to the world. What greater joy can a Soviet factory worker have than a pair of blue jeans. Host Ben Wattenberg. You can watch Dallas between the innings of the war in Lebanon. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D New York). You can watch Dallas in Algiers. And it s been that way from the beginning of the century in Europe. This has always been resented by that traditional elite. Which, and here you get the complexity, which elite has tended to be Leftist through most of the 20th Century. So you have that distaste for America as a kind of vulgar place and a rich place and a place without the higher culture, then you give it a Leftist twist, then you start bringing in the reality of who has the greater number of divisions and you begin to see the results you have there. Which is not however to say that the Europeans have no reason not to want to be a nuclear battleground. But why the one sided nature of the protest. Kind of a judgment has been made, the Soviets have got the edge now.
Wattenberg At Large - Irving Brown. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan discuss American foreign policy.
Host Ben Wattenberg. And yet, I was just looking through some public opinion data from Western Europe, not among elites but among the whole mass of the population, showing on that axis in any event, that the people are still preponderantly pro-American compared to pro-Soviet or even pro-neutralist, in a variety of questions believing that America is still the good guy. And those are in fact the people who vote, they are not the people who write the editorials, but they are the people, but they are the people who vote. So what is there, sort of a, if one is a European left of center politician he must have a very tricky path to walk with the elites and the editorialists on one side and the population still on the other side. The population still remembers the heroic role of America in rescuing Western Europe and so on and so forth, both during the war and after the war. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D New York). Yes, but that s the same population which had to make a judgment about the Nazis and chose to appease them. Basically accepted appeasement, accepted the preponderance of Nazi power and it was real. And you get this kind of sequence, Ben, you see some of it in this country too, a process whereby year after year you say it doesn t matter, it s not happening, they re not building up, nothing is going on. And then bang, as if a tilt took place and say it s too late, you can t do anything.
Wattenberg At Large - Irving Brown. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan discuss American foreign policy.
Host Ben Wattenberg. You used to tell that wonderful story about what was it, the Swiss Family Robinson and the snake? Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D New York). Oh. When our family was young, it was back in the Kennedy years, there was a movie called Swiss Family Robinson and it was a vulgarized version of Robinson Crusoe, but you had to take the children. So one Saturday afternoon we took the children up to a movie house here Georgetown. And this family is shipwrecked and they do wonderful things, they build houses and the find cows and they grow vegetables and they re having a wonderful time. And then comes the snake scene. Young man is in the creek bed, doing something useful, gathering mussels or something, chirping birds are happy, then silence. And the sounds change and the music becomes more ominous and the camera moves up and suddenly, there is the snake. And the snake the snake starts moving down, down. The chirping audience of five and six year olds just goes silent. And in the middle of the silence, our five year old girl suddenly says, That snake likes me. Now that s normal in a five year old, abnormal in a forty-five year old because that snake doesn t like you, that snake wants to eat you.