SHORT TAKES : Video History of 20th Century

ABC News President Roone Arledge announced Monday that ABC News, in conjunction with Gostelradio, the Soviet national broadcast company, and NHK--the public broadcasting network in Japan--will join libraries and production facilities to create a pictorial history of the 20th Century.

The first product of the joint effort should be aired within three years, according to a network spokesman.

Said Arledge: “With the cooperation of an international panel of historians and the depth of material available from three perspectives, we will be able to provide the definitive story of our time for all the world to see.

“We will build a resource that will last well beyond this decade, and there is a feeling among us that it is appropriate that the technologies developed in this century create the archives that preserve it.”