Love at War with Ike and Kay

By Frank Rich

Ike starting May 3, ABC, 9p.m., E.D.T.

For motives that somehow seem less than pure, ABC is devoting six costly hours of prime time to the debate of an absurdly narrow historical question: Did General Dwight D. Eisenhower have a wartime affair with his British aide Kay Summersby, or didn't he? According to Summersby's posthumous memoir, she and Ike stole a few kisses but struck out in two attempts at lovemaking. According to the general's heirs, Ike never dreamed of cheating on Mamie. Poor ABC does not know what to think. The mini-series Ike raises the question of its hero's infidelity at every turn, only to answer that question with a resounding "Maybe." Even Henry James might marvel at the network's scrupulous ambiguity.

If Ike sounds like a sleazy enterprise, have no fear. Sleaziness has never stood in the way of fun on television. Ike is the show that NBC's Backstairs at the White House so desperately wanted to be: a trashy romp through famous events, laced with unprovable innuendo and raucous caricatures of public figures. As history, Ike is a waste of time, but as a time waster, it more than fills the bill.

Like so many ABC miniseries, from the high-toned Roots right down to the pulpy Pearl, Ike is the state of the art in slick TV production. A lot of smart choices have been made, the brightest of all being the casting of Robert Duvall and Lee Remick as the leads. Duvall may not look much like Ike--the top of head notwithstanding--but he cuts a forceful figure. His Eisenhower is unfailingly decent, corny, shrewd: a first-rate general who would later grow into a caretaker President. Remick does not resemble Summersby too much either, but who cares?

Adopting a sprightly British accent and a no-nonsense manner, this handsome actress could cause any man to swoon, regardless of age, rank or marital status. Her feistiness meshes well with Duvall's homey gruffness: they're the Hepburn and Tracy of the European Theater.

True, the couple's puppy love gets a bit too sticky (especially when Ike's own pet puppy intrudes upon the action). At one point, the hero actually tells Kay, "There are times when everyone needs affection and compassion--even a general." Thank God there is a war going on. To break up the moony romantic scenes, Ike offers a colorful tour of the Normandy invasion, the Battle of the Bulge and the debacle of the Kasserine Pass. Evocative old newsreels, with their Lowell Thomas narration blessedly intact, fill in the skirmishes that are not covered by Ike's budget.

Along the way, such figures as Churchill, F.D.R., De Gaulle and Patton make their predictable cameo appearances. With the exception of Ian Richard son's Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, the famous faces are re-created in the crude broad strokes of Halloween masks; ABC rightly assumes that TV's chosen audience, the young, won't know the difference. Of all the Big Names the one who gets the shortest shrift is Mamie.

Stuck back in Washington during the war, she is just a bit player here. That is dis appointing, but maybe ABC will reunite her, Ike and Kay some day in a sitcom spin-off--a sort of Three's Company Goes to Washington. Next to The Ropers, it would be hot stuff.

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