AFI’s ‘Cold War Images’: When TV Rallied ‘Round the Flag : Videos: The role of TV as political persuader is examined in a program opening Thursday at American Film Institute.

One is just about dead, the other brawnier than ever.

Yet the Cold War and American television came of age almost simultaneously in the late 1940s, each destructively feeding off the other.

The ensuing TV-industry offensive against society’s “red menace” became an electronic blood bath that media scholar J. Fred MacDonald calls America’s first “television war.” It wasn’t that the Kremlin and its pals didn’t deserve a measure of enmity, only that MacDonald believes this constant video overkill gave Americans a warped sense of East vs. West that ultimately desensitized them politically when it came to United States involvement in Southeast Asia in the 1960s.

Hence it’s possible that the Vietnam War that TV helped stop was also helped started by the medium.

True or not, there’s no question that, in its early days, TV helped shape public opinion--just as it did during last December’s U.S. invasion of Panama. And just as it does today with the Persian Gulf, featuring President Bush and Iraq President Saddam Hussein as adversaries on the nightly news instead of Ike and Stalin.

It’s useful to flash back and identify the connecting threads.

And we can, thanks to the American Film Institute’s National Video Festival, which runs Thursday through Sunday at the AFI campus in Hollywood.

Among the works being exhibited is a variety of television programs from the Peabody Collection at the University of Georgia titled “Cold War Images.” And despite the relative crudeness of the technology, what powerful images these are, at once mirroring the American mentality of that era (the late ‘40s through early ‘60s) and reminding us of TV’s crucial and often worrisome role in Cold War politics.

The Red Scare paranoia of the years immediately following World War II had a basis in actual events, from the Soviet blockade of Berlin in 1948 to the Kremlin’s atom bomb tests. And the just-developing TV industry, itself fearful of being labeled unpatriotic, helped whip up the frenzy.

It’s hard to envision now, but a popular syndicated series of the time (1953-56) was “I Led Three Lives” (which is not part of the festival). Although based on the real-life experiences of Herbert A. Philbrick--an American Communist and double agent for the FBI--the series was replete with stereotypes and fed the fear that “your best friend may be a traitor.” Worst of all, a Commie traitor.

Such was the climate.

Although the AFI’s “Cold War Images” includes examples of TV bucking the Red scare, it’s the opposite case that is most interesting. There are no shadings and gradations in these Red depictions, only a demonic monolith. Instead of helping us understand our enemy, TV usually distorted and stereotyped him.

An example in the AFI festival is an “Auto-Lite Theatre” production from 1951 called “Train from Czechoslovakia,” starring Richard Kiley as a Czech engineer who hijacks a train to the West. Although based on a true story, it unrealistically depicts a Red realm in which merely inquiring why a train is late can put you in jail. And, interestingly, its two acts are separated by a commercial asking viewers to “help fight communism” by supporting an organization called Crusade for Freedom.

You’ll find no better view of the notorious House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)--a congressional committee that fed irrational fears with smear tactics--than in a 1953 episode of NBC’s “American Forum of the Air.”

In this revealing half hour, a HUAC member and a courageous Methodist bishop clash over the committee’s methods, with the sputtering California congressman making wild charges against the bishop and the church right on the air as host Frank Blair sits silently between the two men. Viewed through 1990 eyes, this is a devastating expose of the HUAC and its utter hyprocrisy, affirming that the committee was far more un-American than most of those it attacked.

The program ends with a commercial for U.S. Defense Bonds.

Another particularly revealing program here is called “Soap Box.” Produced in 1955 by a St. Louis station, it re-enacts an actual hearing in which a black federal employee was interrogated about his alleged affiliation with the Communist party, a charge he denied.

Recited from the transcript, the questioning of the defendant conveys an ugly message of the times, linking civil rights to communism.

Question: “Have you ever told any friends that the Negroes in this country were very downtrodden?” Question: “Do you resent it (discrimination) to the extent you would want to do something about it?” Question: “Has anyone ever pointed out that discrimination, and told you perhaps for that reason you shouldn’t have faith in your government?”

Later, there’s a reference to anything “inter-racial” being considered “out of the ordinary.”

As we ultimately learn, the man was found innocent of the Commie charge and returned to his federal job--as a furniture mover.

Also included in “Cold War Images” are two 1961 programs from the post-Sputnik years. These are about fallout shelters, the mere emphasis of which implied that the U.S. could somehow survive attack from a Soviet strike, making nuclear war somehow more acceptable.

The first program, from KPIX in San Francisco, is a cheery account of 100 volunteers spending 48 hours in a shelter, where the worst problems they encountered were noise and heat.

What about food? “This experimental wafer . . . will keep us alive and healthy,” a man says. What about keeping the kids occupied? No problem: “A youngster with a piece of paper and a crayon can do fine.”

In the second program, a Des Moines station somberly gives an hour of instruction on how to finance (alternative payment plans are discussed), build and survive in fallout shelters. This includes countering the inevitable “mob violence.” One sequence shows a shelter occupant using a rifle to drive off a mob of men.

Although separated by nearly three decades in some cases, there’s a link between these Cold War videos and a 1990 film by Andrew P. Jones that is also part of the AFI festival.

A recipient of a Robert M. Bennett award from the AFI this year, “Panama: Just Cause” is Jones’ first-person account of being in Panama immediately prior to and during the U.S. invasion.

Although journalistically flawed and confusing in parts, Jones’ documentary does give a sense of ordinary Panamanians and his own personal terror over being caught in the cross fire of this one-sided miniwar.

He ends his film with a curious visual “crawl” that indicts “myself and my media colleagues for not paying closer attentions to the Panamanian casualties and for allowing ourselves to be literally spoon-fed by the (U.S.) military. . . .”

Although there is nothing in the film to even remotely justify this admonition, it does apply to much of the initial coverage of the U.S. invasion and overthrow of Gen. Manuel A. Noriega. In the early stages, TV in particular was as much a casualty as the dictator Noriega and his overmatched Panama Defense Forces.

With “official sources” prevailing, the tone of the coverage was this: Might made right, the “surgical” nature of the U.S. military operation limited civilian casualties, Noriega’s red underwear and alleged kinky sex life alone made him unfit to rule, and the powdery white stuff found in his house--and displayed for reporters by U.S. military--just had to be cocaine.

Only later were questions raised about the justness of “Operation Just Cause” as well as the civilian casualty reports. The business about the cocaine--which turned out be flour--was just one of the stories uncritically reported by much of the media in their rush to hew the government line.

From Cold War images to Hot War images: The tie that binds.