THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 6, 1994 TAG: 9408050145
SECTION: TELEVISION WEEK PAGE: 01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY BONKO, TELEVISION COLUMNIST
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines
THIS YEAR, television has celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Normandy landings that liberated Europe from Hitler's grip and the 25th anniversary of man's first stroll on the moon.
TV lately has reminded us that it's been 25 years since ``60 Minutes'' began, a quarter-century since Big Bird first showed up on ``Sesame Street'' and 40 years since that lovable collie, Lassie, romped into our consciousness.
No doubt about it. TV does anniversaries well.
In the next few days, television will revive another echo from the past - the circumstances leading up to the day when Richard M. Nixon became the first and only U.S. president to resign.
Starting Sunday at 9, and continuing through Wednesday, the Discovery Channel will show ``Watergate.'' The miniseries marking the 20th anniversary - there's that word again - of Nixon's resignation will then be repeated from noon until 5 p.m. on Aug. 14.
MTV on Friday will remind us of another relic from the Nixon era - Woodstock.
A&E observes the 20th anniversary of Nixon's resignation on Monday at 11 p.m. with Bill Kurtis hosting ``The Key to Watergate,'' a special edition of ``Investigative Reports.'' On Sunday at 10:30 p.m., the Disney Channel is reviving David Frost's interviews with Nixon which were done shortly after he stepped down on ``1994 Special Edition: Watergate.'' Disney is promising previously unseen footage from the Nixon interviews.
Could there possibly be anything in the Watergate scandal not reported or seen and heard in these past 20 years?
``Watergate'' producers Brian Lapping, Norma Percy and Paul Mitchell told TV reporters here that their documentary on the Discovery Channel has a number of exclusives, such as the copy of the White House memo which authorized the funds that financed the break-in of the Democrats' headquarters in Washington, D.C. The bungling of that break-in started the dominoes falling which eventually brought down the Nixon presidency.
The cost of bugging the Democrats' headquarters: $300,000. It's in the memo.
``Nixon's staff shredded incriminating documents, but that one crucial memo survived,'' say the producers.
Appearing before TV reporters here recently was former Nixon counsel John Dean. Once upon a time, he was part of an operation run in deep secrecy - the Watergate burglars were passed off as White House plumbers.
And now 20 years later, here was Dean talking openly about his former boss and his role in the Watergate coverup. It was Dean's testimony before a Senate hearing which brought the coverup out into the sunlight.
Of Nixon, he said, ``I found in him a very mean streak. He was the strangest man I ever met. It angered me that I was being asked to take the fall.''
This scandal produced a gripping film starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman (``All the President's Men''), and is the basis for the Discovery Channel documentary which is just as compelling. The producers used 55 interviews in the five-part miniseries. You hear the famous Nixon tapes.
Said producer Percy, ``To be actually listening in on a president of the United States urging his aides to find hush money to pay off the Watergate burglars was a thrill that is unequaled in anything I'd come across in 20 years of journalism. The man had something to hide.''
``Watergate'' is narrated by Daniel Schorr, and what irony that is.
When Nixon was president, his staff had assembled an enemies' list. Schorr's name was No. 18 on that list. ``A real media enemy,'' it said next to his name.
Also on TV this weekend, also from the Discovery Channel, and also a study of sharks - but not the political kind:
It's the end of Shark Week on Discovery. Today at noon, the first of four programs devoted to the rulers of the seas rolls out. On Sunday, also starting at noon, five documentaries about sharks are scheduled. The run ends at 7 p.m. with ``Teeth of Death.'' Truth is, sharks are now the hunted as much as the hunter. Dried shark fins, considered an aphrodisiac, sell for $150 a pound in the Orient.
A&E on Friday at 8 p.m. includes Steve Allen in its popular ``Biography'' series with a look at the man who invented late-night talk TV and has evolved as a Renaissance man. ``Steve Allen: Hi-Ho Steverino'' brings back the cast from his old ``Tonight'' show on NBC including Bill Dana, Pat Harrington Jr., Louis Nye and Steve Lawrence and Edie Gorme. Did you know that Allen has written 42 books? More than 4,000 songs?
Where were you when Woodstock first happened? MTV recalls that era of free love and flower power starting Friday at 3 p.m. with ``Woodstock '94 Weekend.'' See Metallica and Johnny Cash on the same musical program!
If the Watergate specials don't satisfy your hunger for government scandals, how about a serving of the good ol' Iran-Contra mess, which involved our very candidate for the U.S. Senate, Oliver North? The ``P.O.V.'' series on public television, which embraces a wide range of programming, tells the story of peace activist Bill Breeden and the mess he got into for stealing a street sign with John Poindexter's name on it. (Poindexter was a major player in this scandal.) ``The Times of a Sign: A Folk History of the Iran-Contra Scandal'' airs Tuesday night at 9 on WHRO. ILLUSTRATION: Twenty years ago, Richard Nixon resigned as U.S. president.
Programs on the Discovery Channel, A&E, MTV and Disney look at Nixon
and the Watergate scandal.
by CNB