Vienna Query: Where's Walter?

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency/ Hugh Sidey

The Vienna summit may have tipped the balance. It may have been the occasion when the show biz finally outweighed the statecraft. The meeting was important, yes. And the feelings that Leonid Brezhnev and Jimmy Carter develop for one another will linger and mark their actions. But the more than 2,000 reporters, commentators, anchormen, photographers, directors, scriptwriters and producers drawn to a summit now dwarf the participants in numbers, machinery and perhaps even in celebrity.

"Where's Walter Cronkite?" gasped a journalist from the Soviet magazine Literary Gazette. "I want to interview him." The glossiest limousine, a black Mercedes 600, was ogled by spectators when it rolled by with a sign in the window that said CBS NEWS COVERS THE PRESIDENT'S VISIT. Every chauffeur in Vienna was hired by the invading electronic hordes, and Barbara Walters arrived only after an advance team had plotted her moves as they do for a President. She came with a journalistic valet who carried notes, coats, pencils.

The luminescence in the Vienna Hilton, which housed most of the media contingent, sometimes was blinding. Cronkite and his wife Betsy strolled by. Heads craned, eyes brightened. That was just after John Chancellor had gone through and clustered spectators had nodded in recognition. Then Tom Brokaw was spied in a debonair pose on the winding staircase. And there were even some famous writers, like the legendary James B. ("Scotty") Reston, who trailed the aura of authority as they trod the byways of old Vienna in pursuit of drama.

It is calculated beyond any contradiction that there were 40 journalists for every genuine source of information. Had the government officials answered all the press requests they never would have had time to meet. There are a few melancholy figures who are afraid that maybe this depressing state of affairs is all but upon us. Heads of state will gather and do little more than be interviewed and appear on talk shows.

The Hollywood syndrome has reached CinemaScopic dimensions since Kennedy's time. But when some of the Middle East negotiating was actually staged by the evening news we were very close to changing the nature of diplomacy. Vienna may have been that turning point.

The perception of how the two leaders talked and negotiated was clearly almost as important for U.S. domestic consumption as the document of SALT II. Try as hard as they might to stick to substance, the demands of "the show" had to be calculated by Carter and his purveyor of silver linings, Jerry Rafshoon. For Carter, for the U.S., for the world, just how the show plays over the air can be crucial. It is instant entertainment. It is the national security blanket.

The media budgets for summitry now exceed in many respects that of the Government for the same occasion. Cameramen stake out every important site at exorbitant rates. ABC furnished its people with more badges than the Austrian police could claim. The briefing books assembled by TV research staffs were often better than those put out by the Government.

One evening during the proceedings, the popping of electronic lights and the crowding of Austrian reporters halted action while competitors rushed to see the reason for the stir. The cause was Pierre Salinger, the former J.F.K. press secretary and current TV man about Europe. On his 54th birthday an Austrian paper had sent a cake and champagne over to "Plucky," who was savoring a Havana cigar and shouting greetings to friends. At his side, almost unnoticed, was Jody Powell, Carter's press secretary.

Maybe the most revealing sign of all about the future occurred at the Vienna airport. Air Force One, our Boeing 707, a proud and beautiful lady who has seen a lot of history, rolled up to the ramp. Spotlights played on the Presidential Seal, but there was a faint feeling of anticlimax. Just before Carter arrived, the media plane had emptied its army. For the first tune since Presidents have been flying, Air Force One was in a shadow. The media came on a gorgeous Pan Am 747.

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