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# THE KISSINGER BRIEFING

A Television documentary series proposal by the David Paradine Group and Video Arts Television Ltd.

July 1979.

## A. THE PROJECT

A.1. This is a proposal for a series of one-hour (or possibly half-hour) filmed documentary programmes presented by Dr. Henry Kissinger, to be transmitted on the PBS Network not earlier than the fall of 1982. The number of programmes in the series is yet to be decided, but it is unlikely to be fewer than eight or more than thirteen one-hour programmes, and proportionately more half-hours.

A.2. The objective of the programmes is to give the television audience an organised understanding of world history since 1945; to show people where we are now, and to explain how we got here.

A.3. There is a great need for a series of programmes that will give a background and context to the international news that people see on their television screens every night. At the moment the viewer is bombarded with episodic and staccato information about people, places

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and events which leap suddenly from the screen,
strike him between the eyes and then in a few days
or weeks vanish back into the electronic void.
Most international news appears random and unrelated,
without any visible logic or pattern. The aim of
this series is to provide the audience with a sub-
structure of information and understanding, so that
items of world news no longer seem isolated and inex-
plicable. A story covering forty-years - the lifetime
of more than half the audience - will show that events
have causes and consequences, that people have memories
and aspirations, and that nations have histories and
destinies.

A.4. We have talked in terms of the US television audience, but the intention is that the programmes should be shown on networks all round the world, and especially in all the major western nations. The series will also be made available to schools and colleges all over the world. Moreover the project will also include a major book, which will be essentially the commentary narrative of the programmes, and a range of educational course materials to accompany the school and college editions of the series.

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A.5. Such a project can be undertaken only by someone of HK's stature. The scope is too large to be reduced by a conventional editorial precis - the result would be an interminable newsreel scrapbook. The series demands the courage to omit, and the authority to justify the omissions. This can spring only from a clear personal view of what is the essence of the story that has to be told, which in turn means that the series must be entrusted to a single individual. If he is purely an academic, he will be rightly accused of lacking the necessary political experience and insight, and will almost certainly lack that essential dash of popular showmanship. If he is purely a politician, he will be accused of lacking the necessary scholarly discipline and detachment, as well as probably being short of the reflective depth and intellectual breadth that this project demands. Indeed if HK himself cannot undertake the series, it is hard to see who else has the qualifications to do it.

## B. STRUCTURE OF THE SERIES

B.1. It would obviously be possible to structure a series of this sort purely by chronology, allocating roughly
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a five-year chunk to each programme. It is
a perfectly respectable structure, but we feel
it would be inappropriate for this series. Its
limitation is that each programme would have to in-
clude a bit about the USA, a bit about Europe, bits
about the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia and
so on, and at no point in the series would there
be time to look at any of them in the sort of depth
necessary to give the insights and perspectives
that the series must supply.

B.2. The alternative is to think in terms of a series of position papers, taking region by region and telling its story from 1945 to the present day. Internally, of course, each programme would be structured chronologically, but within a single country or region it would be possible to trace the all-important *causal* relationships right through the 40-year period in a way that a purely chronological series structure rules out.

B.3. There is however a device which makes it possible to harness the advantages of chronology to an essentially thematic series. It is the device used by Bronowski in *The Ascent of Man*. Each programme .../...

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took a different science as its theme, but the series
as a whole appeared to move forward as a history of
science. This was achieved by starting each programme
with a key person or discovery or event following a
chronological order - Pythagoras, Galileo, Newton,
Darwin - and then taking them as a starting point
for a thematic programme about mathematics, astronomy,
astrophysics, biology. This series could use the same
sort of device to give an apparent chronological pro-
gression to the essentially thematic programmes about
the principal geopolitical regions in the period 1945 -
1980.

B.4. There are two special advantages to the 'key event' device.

(i) It gives a sense of progressive revelation to the series, so that viewers feel they are building up a single large picture rather than a number of isolated smaller pictures. It answers the unspoken question "Why produce a series instead of periodic single documentaries?".

(ii) Very often the fact that the programme, on, say, Japan started with the Macarthur occupation gives the opportunity of an interesting rounding-off by coming back to Macarthur at the end and reflecting

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programme would then move on to look
at the differing fortunes of the two Europes,
the rise of West Germany, the building of the
Wall, and at NATO, the Common Market, Euro
Communism, terrorism, de Gaulle's France,
Hungary and Czechoslovakia and East Germany
or whatever else HK thought most important
to explain why modern Europe is the way it is.

N.B.

(a) It is perfectly possible to make Europe
into two programmes: one on Eastern Europe
and one on Western Europe.

(b) It will be seen that by making, say,
the building of the Berlin Wall into the key
event, this programme could be moved to a
later position in the series. This is true
for all the subsequent programmes as well.

3. 1950 **Key Event:** North Korea invades South Korea.
   **Region:** South-East Asia

   Communist China emerges as a major military
   and political presence. The programme could
   then look at the political vacuum created by
   the withdrawal of the European powers (Britain,
   France, Holland) and how China and the USA
   were sucked into it.

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4. 1953 **Key Event:** The Death of Stalin
   **Region:** USSR

The story of the changes in Russia's internal policies pivoting on deStalinisation. Russia and Eastern Europe: Yugoslavia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Russia in the world: infiltration in the Middle East and Africa, confrontation in Berlin, Cuba, China. Detente and its aftermath. The recent progress of Russia's strategic ambitions.

5. 1956 **Key Event:** Suez

**Region:** The Middle East

Suez marks the end of Europe's attempts to control the destiny of the Middle East by military power. The programme could briefly trace the story of Israel from the Balfour Declaration and then follow the conflicts of Arab and Jew, East and West, colonialist, nationalist, oil exporter and oil importer, up to the present day.

6. 1958 **Key Event:** The Great Leap Forward

**Region:** China

First the struggle between communists and Nationalists, then the internal struggles

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the powers, rivalries and economic forces
of the present with those that dominated the
world in 1945, and looks forward towards
2,000 not to predict events but to identify
the forces that will shape them.

B.6. It should be stressed once again that the foregoing is purely an illustration, and in no sense a treatment or a synopsis. Japan is completely omitted: perhaps it should have its own programme, perhaps it should be treated as part of the South East Asia programme, or the China programme. Australia, India and Pakistan, Canada and Central and South America are also omitted. On the other hand, this illustration contains only nine programmes, so there is room for three or four more. Equally, if the programmes were to be half-hours, all these could be included, Europe could be two programmes (East and West), the Middle East could be two programmes (either Israel and the Arab World or pre-1967 and post-1967) and so on. All these points require HK's input and judgment, and must be submitted to his final decision.

### C. HK's ROLE

C.1. HK will be the author (or co-author if preferred) of the series, and also the presenter of it on camera.

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This must entail:

(i) Working out an acceptable series format, sequence and structure with the producers.

(ii) Drafting an initial "guidance thesis" of perhaps two or three thousand words for each programme.
This must be completed early enough to give direction to the initial research and production planning.

(iii) Agreeing the shooting scripts with the producers.

(iv) Filming 'on camera' pieces on location for each programme.

(v) Viewing and checking the rough-cuts of each film.

(vi) Writing, or agreeing, the commentary scripts for each film.

(vii) Voicing the commentary for each film.

C.2. Obviously HK must be concerned to know how much of his time this will take. Clearly it can take all his time if he wishes to give it, but there are ways of reducing the time commitment, principally by extra research back-up, by keeping his location appearances to a minimum and filming them in batches, by allowing a professional scriptwriter to write the actual film commentaries on the basis of HK's brief, or even by using a different, 'impersonal' narrative voice to tell the stories of the events and keeping HK's role to that of explainer,

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analyst, scene-setter, philosopher and (if he wishes) moralist. Either way we might often find it useful to run archive film with its actual commentary given at the time, to bring up the contrast between what the world was being told and the true facts as established by hindsight or inside information. Nevertheless, even the minimum is a considerable commitment of time, and past experience suggests that the series would probably be HK's largest single commitment during the peak production period.

## D. LOGISTICS

D.1. How long would the series take to complete? A series of ten one-hour programmes of this scale and significance can hardly take less than two years from start to finish, and might be nearer three. Moreover the series cannot start until the arrangements for financing and broadcasting the series are complete, and that process could take as much as six months to finalise. Consequently, we should expect filming (though not necessarily sequences involving HK) to start in the fall of 1980 and the earliest transmission date to be during the 1982-3 season.

D.2. When would the series begin? This would depend on HK. Once he gives a starting date, the project can be

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