Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 30, 1990                   TAG: 9006300207
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: TOM SHALES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

TV HAS BEEN GENEROUS IN COVERAGE OF MANDELA'S MAGIC

"Issue One: Mandelamania!" bellowed John McLaughlin at the start of his "McLaughlin Group" show. "Mandelamania!" echoed guest host Al Hunt on CNN's `Capital Gang." Harold Dow, reporting for CBS News from the Mandela stop in Boston, said, "It's being called `Mandela Magic.' "

Whatever it's being called, the man at the center of the storm keeps up an admirable dignity. "Through it all, he seemed calm and thoughtful," observed Charles Kuralt on CBS's "Sunday Morning."

One of the speakers at a New York rally was quoted as calling Mandela "the moral leader of the world." That seemed a little excessive. As Morton Kondracke noted on "McLaughlin," Mandela is not Gandhi, not Martin Luther King Jr. He brandishes the raised fist, not the peace sign.

But in an age rather short on heroes, he'll certainly suffice. Mandela's public behavior on television the past few days has been a display mostly of humility and grace.

"Few can remember a time when there has been a greater outpouring of emotion and excitement," said anchor Carole Simpson on ABC's "World News Saturday." Mandela was "greeted like a hero" by crowds in New York and Boston, she said, and CBS's Dow, like many other correspondents, reported Mandela getting "a hero's welcome."

"He's a genuine hero," said Cokie Roberts on ABC's "This Week With David Brinkley." But she had a caveat. "One thing that happens to heroes is, the closer you get to them, the less heroic they seem."

That's partly what happened when Mandela appeared on an extraordinary ABC "Town Meeting" hosted and produced by Ted Koppel, a gathering at the City College of New York that aired as an hour of prime time on Thursday and then spilled over into "Nightline" for another 45 minutes.

To Koppel's great credit, this was the only Mandela encounter up to that point to make other than ceremonial news. Mandela jolted his pacifist image by praising and declaring solidarity with Moammar Gadhafi, Yasser Arafat and Fidel Castro, prominent members of the world's rogues' gallery. "We identify with the PLO," Mandela said - to eerie cheers from the partisan crowd that were more chilling than Mandela's words.

Mandela also may have shocked viewers - and seemed to delight the audience at City College - by a couple of times getting tough with media statesman Koppel. When Koppel asked why Mandela was keeping up the push for sanctions even as the current South African regime appears to be making major concessions on apartheid, Mandela snapped, "I should know better about this matter, Mr. Koppel, than you."

True enough.

Later, when Koppel referred again to concessions, Mandela said, "No, Mr. Koppel, you are entirely misinformed." When one of Mandela's answers - which he seemed not to finish - left Koppel momentarily speechless, Mandela looked at him and, after waiting a second for a response, chided, "I don't know if I have paralyzed you."

Koppel grinned, Mandela smiled, and the crowd laughed. It was a tension-relieving moment. The two men shook hands. Koppel handled the whole thing beautifully. Even he seemed to find it refreshing that somebody dared to snap at him on the air. Mandela, to put it mildly, was not awed by Koppel. In fact, on "Capital Gang," Hunt marveled, "I've never seen anyone dominate Ted Koppel the way Nelson Mandela did."

If Mandela can "dominate Ted Koppel," the implication was, then George Bush will be a pushover.

Perhaps the best news footage has been not of Mandela himself, or of his wife, Winnie, but of the crowds who have gathered to see him. His arrival in Washington was delayed so long Sunday - by four hours at least - that crowds were not especially huge at National Airport or at the Madison Hotel, his Washington headquarters. But on the faces of those who showed up one could see Mandela's legend growing.

It seems doubtful that the prediction George Will made on the Brinkley show will come true - that "a week from now" the visit will be "forgotten." But even if he's right, the moments have been worth savoring. Beyond his status as a crusader against racism, Mandela looms large as one individual standing up to an oppressive state, like the student who faced down a tank in Tiananmen Square, or like any number of stubborn upstarts from the revolution that produced America.

Has there been too much praise, too much adulation? Maybe. But then, Mandela seems to have made everybody feel awfully good, at least for now. The visit has been a gift, and television has been generous in giving it. Washington Post Writers Group