The Biggest Studio

TV went to Chicago armed with better makeup artists, nattier dress and more fancy electronic gadgets than ever before. The show hardly lived up to its lavish pressagentry, but TV provided the nation with the most comprehensive coverage ever accorded a national political convention. The TV was occasionally halting, windy and inaccurate, but it had its moments of high drama. More important, it was always there. Creepie-peepies and walkie-talkies manned by hard-running TV reporters -notably ABC's Ed Morgan, CBS's Dick Hottelet, NBC's Merrill Mueller -peered, poked and pried into the remotest nooks of hotel rooms, train stations, nightclubs, and the convention hall itself.

The three major networks called out their stables of old, reliable stars, and laid on a couple of new ones. CBS's veteran Walter Cronkite. working his familiar anchor spot, gave the most informed, alert and consistently lucid commentary, held up best under the week's strain. His biggest coup: getting Ave Harriman inside the fishbowl to exchange blessings with Estes Kefauver on a split-screen hookup (denounced as "electronic fakery" by rival ABC). CBS's seasoned twosome of Ed Murrow and Eric Severeid was seen only fleetingly, bantering the big picture with the casualness of network executives at a ball game.

Runners-up in the honors department: NBC's able Chet Huntley and young (36), deadpan David Brinkley, who this year teamed up for the first time to add zest and drollery -a rare convention commodity -to the otherwise dull goings-on. Occasionally this new NBC team even had the edge on the traditionally good CBS reporting staff.

ABC's anchorman, John (What's My Line?) Daly, made a virtue out of his chain's relative poverty (less gadgetry, smaller staff) by sticking with the action on the platform while the other webs cast about for sideshow pickups. Daly was the only anchorman who could actually see the convention from his box (the others watched it over monitor screens). ABC highlight: bulldogging Martin Agronsky corralling top delegates for debate, and consistently managing to make sense out of them.

Trivia & Fluffs. As always, the ubiquitous TV reporters caught some memorable glimpses: the unchivalrous disinterest of newspaper-reading delegates on ladies' day; NBC's pickup of the small but illuminating drama of Adlai Stevenson's reception for Mrs. Roosevelt; Bess Truman, behind dark glasses, nudging Harry in the ribs for speaking out of turn; bottle-bald Sam Rayburn (who did not submit to a dulling topsoil application of orange powder this time, as he did the last) threatening to shoot an admonishing finger right through the little glass screens in U.S. living rooms; the grin spreading across H. V. Kaltenborn's face as he watched Harry Truman (on film) impersonate Kaltenborn's clipped commentary in the 1948 elections (later, at Perle Mesta's wingding, Kaltenborn did an impersonation of Truman impersonating Kaltenborn).

The relentless camera magnified the trivia and underlined the fluffs, caught the convention's heights and hollows -;and its occasional signs of petulance and flippancy -Truman dressing down a reporter who was badgering him for an interview; Tennessee's Governor Clement hamming it up for photographers; Paul Butler boiling mad over CBS's failure to run a documentary film (see PRESS).

TV's impact on the convention was emphasized from the start, when Paul Butler surprised everybody by banging the gavel on time. And in a sense, TV itself could be blamed for much of the tedium. Almost every speaker, painfully conscious of the camera's eye, addressed himself to "you who are watching TV." The galluses, the sweat, the unguarded gestures, the open shirts and bold-patterned ties were gone for good.

But there were enough human bloopers to make up for the lack of old-fashioned fun. John Daly reported: "Mr. Rostrum stands in recess." Will Rogers Jr. (CBS) wound up a Stevenson interview with "Thank you very much, Governor Harriman" (Retorted Adlai: "Goodbye, Dave Garroway!"). Crooner Johnny Desmond muffed the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner, and NBC's Monitor introduced Mrs. Roosevelt as "Eleanor Stevenson."

Legs Crossed, Jackets Buttoned. Network rivalry hit a new peak. CBS posted a sign for its staffers: "Under no circumstances are you to patronize the NBC cafeteria." TV Reporter Vince Garrity caused an outraged flurry by flaunting ABC lapel pins in range of rival cameras. NBC went so far as to hire a professional lip reader to try to catch out-of-reach conversation, and ABC issued instructions to its staff: "Be sure when you are on camera, that you sit up straight, have your legs crossed modestly, and your jacket buttoned."

The biggest problem was getting cameras into the right place at the right time. Sometimes the sheer magnitude of the new gadgets delayed the news. One NBC man got stuck on top of a 70-foot "hi-reach" camera and was forgotten. Twelve ABC men were wedged between electronic gear in a tiny booth until someone called a locksmith. Larry (Meet the Press) Spivak had to be rushed to a doctor to have a small speaker plug removed from his ear. Texas Senator Lyndon Johnson got hopping mad at CBS for "wrecking" his hotel suite, and no one could stand to look at NBC's five simultaneous pictures for very long.

But overall, the networks did a fascinating job of hustling televiewers inside their biggest studio. To make things easier, they superimposed arrows and circles on the screen to single out key figures. NBC commentators loomed into view in the shape of triangles, sometimes peeped through keyholes. But as ABC's debearded (for TV) John Vandercook mused: "Sometimes I think we suffer from embarrassment of riches."

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