Long Voyage

By R.Z.

FATAL VISION

NBC, Nov. 18 and 19, 9p.m. E.S.T.

The case of Captain Jeffrey MacDonald, the Green Beret doctor whose wife and two daughters were brutally murdered in their home at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 1970, has led a succession of investigators on a shocking voyage of discovery. MacDonald claimed (and still does) that a band of drug-crazed hippies committed the carnage. But Army investigators found holes in his story and soon began to suspect MacDonald. When charges against MacDonald were dropped because of insufficient evidence, his father-in-law led a crusade to find the murderers. After examining the evidence, he, too, became convinced that his son-in-law had committed the crime. Years later, when MacDonald was finally brought to trial, Author Joe McGinniss began chronicling the story, and also concluded that MacDonald was guilty, in his 1983 bestseller Fatal Vision.

Now a two-part NBC movie is about to take viewers through the fascinating mystery. With meticulous direction by David Greene (Friendly Fire) and a well-chosen cast headed by Gary Cole as MacDonald and Karl Maiden as his avenging inlaw, the four-hour drama is absorbing from beginning to end. But this time around, the long voyage of discovery has acquired some dubious shortcuts.

MacDonald was a charming, Princeton-educated, ail-American boy, whose friends insisted that he was incapable of such a brutal crime. TV's MacDonald, however, is far more transparent. His account of the crime to Army interrogators is halting and unconvincing. On TV talk shows (where he delights in lambasting the Army's botched investigation) he seems oily and mean spirited. Even the flashback scenes of MacDonald's purportedly happy marriage are sprinkled with signs of trouble. (When MacDonald invites some friends for Christmas drinks at the last minute, he blithely ignores his wife's understandable dismay.)

MacDonald's lawyers, who are preparing another appeal of his 1979 conviction, tried unsuccessfully to halt the telecast of Fatal Vision, claiming it would prejudice a prospective jury. Viewers may have a more legitimate beef. Fatal Vision is a dandy detective story, but it slyly skirts the real mystery: How could a man of such impeccable credentials, one so outwardly normal, be capable of these dark deeds? A tougher question for a tougher-minded TV movie. --R.Z.