‘Burning’ Truth

Sheila Benson, in her otherwise on-target review of “Mississippi Burning,” said that what we knew about the events depicted in the movie (the deaths of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964) came “only from our television screens, from newspapers or from books” (“ ‘Burning’ Looks Back in Anger,” Dec. 9).

She obviously did not see the 1975 four-hour miniseries, “Attack on Terror: The FBI Against the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi,” which starred Peter Strauss, Dabney Coleman, Ned Beatty, Wayne Rogers and Rip Torn. It was directed by Marvin Chomsky, written by Calvin Clements from Don Whitehead’s book and produced by me for QM Productions.

For those audiences too young to remember, or for those who would like to see the docudramatization taken from the FBI files, “Attack on Terror” normally reruns about once a year in syndication on a local station. The historic events of 1964 Mississippi are much too important to receive the “Dirty Harry” distortion now on view at your neighborhood theaters.

PHILIP SALTZMAN

Universal City