Robbinsense: KCET Programming

KCET

4401 Sunset Blvd.

Los Angeles, Ca 90027

Bohdan Zachary, Programming Director

Dear Mr. Zachary:

I am a long-time KCET viewer and supporter. My membership number is 50101081.

I am dismayed that you have dropped from the PBS network. As of month 2, I have tuned in to only a few of your programs, compared to at least twice as many from our local PBS affiliate.

Yesterday I finished your 2-hour retrospective on the Reagan presidency, a period that was an extremely mixed bag.

In the mid seventies, our balance of payments went south. President Carter responded to the alarming prospect of our out-of-control petroleum demand with a speech in which he outlined a plan to tackle these problems. The Reagan campaign labeled it the “malaise” speech, then promised “Morning in America”---no oil problems, no economic problems no trade problems, lower taxes. That’s what we wanted to hear! Reagan turned around every effort that Carter made to reduce energy consumption and tend to the environment. During his years we went from the world’s largest creditor-nation to the world’s largest debtor-nation. We’ve gotten everything that Carter presaged and more…it’s unfolding even now.

Your program did not mention any of this, or the skyrocketing national debt that Reagan launched with his “credit card prosperity.” He told us that government was inefficient and “the problem,” then set about to prove that he was correct by crippling it. Iran-Contra was glossed over.

The program mentioned the shoot-down of Korean Air 007 in 1983, but there was no mention that the plane actually was on a CIA-sponsored spy mission. Our most sophisticated radar-mapping resources, including two RC-135s (AWACS of the day) and many sophisticated ships were on hand for the “show.” Captain Chun delayed his departure from Anchorage by forty minutes, then flew off-course, at very low cruise speeds to coordinate penetration of the Sakhalin Island military defense network with the passing of the space shuttle. While flying out of radar coverage, he used a parallel flight, Korean Air 015, to “shadow” his flight plan and make false position reports. The two governments would never admit, of course, their involvement in this shameful caprice, but the evidence for intentional penetration is overwhelming. The crew on flight 015 was placed on “house arrest” upon arrival, and never left the country again. As a 36-year, career airline pilot, I am extremely familiar with all the equipment and procedures involved in that disaster, and it was no “accident.”* Reagan used the lives on that plane as a propaganda bonanza against the Soviets.

He taught us that we, as a people, and as a nation, do not have to be responsible. Your program said nothing of any of this! I suspect that this was the Reagan retrospective that was dropped by CBS two years ago after program directors realized it was just fuzzy, Republican remembrances. Did you pay for this program, or did the RNC pay you to broadcast it?

I am not a partisan Democrat. In January you aired a 2-hour show about the Kennedy family that had the same tint: fuzzy remembrances of Camelot past. It seemed to portray the Kennedy ancestors faithfully. But Jack: No mention of his long-time addictions to drugs and womanizing…nothing about his involvement with gangs, engaged to assassinate Castro. The program failed to point out that his alleged “missile gap” that lit the afterburner on the cold war was actually an imbalance drastically in our favor. Kennedy was probably responsible for tripling the number of nuclear weapons and missiles in the two arsenals. And why didn’t he stop the war? “Bear any burden, pay any price…” politics!

Bobby: Not much on him in the program, but they failed to mention that he was head hatchet-man for Joe McCarthy.

And Teddy: how could they side-step Chappaquiddick and the death of Mary Jo Kopechne? Not exactly irrelevant in his story, this incident unraveled any possible run at the presidency.

These are not the kind of programs that I have come to expect from KCET. I mourn the loss of the special programming that you have offered for decades. With my terminated pension and a limited budget for contributions, when that time rolls around, I will apportion my gifts between you and KOCE according to the quality of your programming.

Thanks for the run; and good luck.

Sincerely,