Better to Let Poland Be?

A television show makes the global village uneasy

"I've got it! Let's put on a show!" That cheerful brainstorm, brimming with optimism, was a staple of MGM's old Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland movies. It was that same bubbly spirit of all-American teamwork, given a righteous edge, that prompted the Reagan Administration to put on a television special called Let Poland Be Poland. The 90-minute program was produced by the Government's International Communication Agency at a cost of more than $350,000, mostly corporate donations. It was scheduled to be broadcast early this week by local Public Broadcasting Service outlets. As many as 50 foreign countries (including Senegal, with its 2,000 TV sets) also planned to air it.

The show was conceived as a singular crossbreed of documentary and star-studded entertainment, politics and theatrical pizazz. The script called for Orson Welles to growl out passages from John Donne between scenes of labor union rallies in Chicago and West Germany; President Reagan and a dozen other heads of state to deliver speeches; and a New Jersey native--Frank Sinatra--to sing Ever Homeward, in Polish. According to the ICA, the program aimed to "reflect the widespread international concern for the plight of the people of Poland." ICA Director Charles Wick, who once worked as an arranger for the late Tommy Dorsey's band, dreamed up the project shortly after the imposition of martial law. He rejects suggestions that a television spectacular, however heartfelt, was an inappropriate response to military repression. Says Wick: "To remain passive is a bummer."

Yet despite the good intentions, the response from the global village was understandably mixed. Most foreign broadcasters elected not to air the program. Even among the foreign leaders who indulged the U.S. requests for videotaped messages, enthusiasm was not unanimous.* Said an aide to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: "She didn't know she was going to be on with people like Sinatra." An aide to French President Franc,ois Mitterrand was more derisive: "It was pure show business, and demeans the idea of showing solidarity with the Polish people."

But the show did get scattered applause. West Germany's newspaper Die Welt marveled at American "spontaneity and verve in coping with things recognized as right." While observing that such an enterprise "could only happen under Ronald Reagan," the Montreal Gazette was approving: "Though Poles can no longer speak for themselves, in the West we can at least speak for them."

Congress last week voted to exempt the program from the law that forbids U.S. distribution of ICA productions. Let Poland Be Poland was to be transmitted over the PBS satellite, but the 297 local PBS affiliates had the option not to air it. Among the stations that declined was KTCA in Minneapolis. Said Stephen Kulczycki, the Polish American vice president of KTCA: "It clearly violates our programming and journalistic standards. We turn down hundreds of requests a month to broadcast someone's propaganda."

Predicting the size of the world audience was problematic. In Japan, a TV executive who expected the extravaganza to be "altogether new and gripping" nevertheless thought that it would attract fewer than 4% of his country's viewers. Ratings aside, Let Poland Be Poland proved that whatever the U.S. may lack in diplomatic delicacy, it makes up in sheer spunk.

*Among those taping statements were the leaders of Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Norway, West Germany, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Canada, Australia and Japan. The entire program was scheduled to be broadcast in the last five countries. Argentina, Brazil, Gabon, Mexico, Oman, South Africa and Togo were among other recipients.

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