Acronyms and Abbreviations

Introduction

It was during one of his many World War II combat tours that the popular, genial, and often exhausted war correspondent Ernie Pyle remarked:

I haven’t written anything about the Big Picture, because I don’t know anything about it. I only know what we see from our worm’s-eye view, and our segment of this picture consists only of tired and dirty soldiers who are alive and don’t want to die; of long darkened convoys in the middle of the night; of shocked, silent men wandering back down the hill from battle; of chow lines and atabrine tablets and foxholes and burning tanks.¹

Perhaps it was because they understood Pyle’s comments about that narrowed perspective that Lieutenants Carl Bruton and David Burkey, together with a small group of US Army officers, conceptualized a film series that offered to widen the lens of understanding for service members, their families, and the general public. While serving in the US Army during the early years of the Korean War, Bruton and Burkey realized that thousands of feet of accumulated combat footage lay unused. Captured by the combat cameramen of the Army Signal Corps, reels of film that included “highly dramatic scenes taken during combat operations” were available to craft into a video narrative of the events occurring during that conflict.² Seizing the moment, they began work on the documentary television series that in late 1951 would become The Big Picture, “the Department of the Army’s first TV project of its kind.”³

Bruton and Burkey’s idea that sparked an innovative project to simply provide an expanded view of the war to the American public caught the energy of emerging contemporary technology. It was at this intersection of need and innovation that they realized opportunity. Although it would take years to fully develop the concept into a popularly recognized television series, The Big Picture did evolve into a vehicle whose intention was to help the army tell its story, sell its relevance in the emerging Cold War, connect with the audience, and inform and educate them about American ideals. In doing so, it would also lend a human face to those individuals who wore the uniform. Woven into the narratives of these episodes were messages that emerged and took shape from the energies of the early post-1945 zeitgeist. These served as themes that coursed through the catalog of shows informing productions that reflected a national mood that was anticommunist, steeped in exceptional American foundational principles, and too trusting of elite leadership.

This study reveals, however, that the longer The Big Picture maintained those themes the more they began to lose their resonance, especially when the cultural and social environments of the United States began changing in the mid-1960s. In that context, the war in Vietnam served as a turning point for the show as it did for prevailing national attitudes. Under those conditions, some politically progressive elites and members of the public cast the light of criticism on the show, judging the earlier messages as growing faded and stale, disconnected from contemporary interpretations of America’s global role and responsibilities. It stands as a critical flaw that the series’ producers never sought to adapt to these changes, other than adoption of technological advancements. Instead, they chose to continue to navigate a course that was set during the early Cold War years. As a result, the credibility of the show began to suffer, and it endured some alienation as it remained a public theater for overtly conservative, exceptionalist values.

Throughout the course of its two-decade production run, however, The Big Picture cast a big shadow over similar television shows of its time. It outlasted many of the original news and information productions that focused on politics and the military. The Armed Forces Hour, Battle Report, and The Facts We Face preceded it, yet disappeared soon after the Big Picture arrived on the scene. Other shows that followed on its heels, such as On Guard and Navy Log, were born of similar creative energies but lacked the staying power. Within a few years, they also disappeared from television screens, leaving the Big Picture as the single, premier military banner carrier from the late 1950s until its termination in the early 1970s. Its primacy was never seriously challenged, and by 1970 the army’s Information Officer’s Guide still considered the show to be the “Army’s official documentary television effort.”⁴ Notching more than 800 episodes to its credit, The Big Picture found its way to viewing audiences first through prime-time television slots, then via syndication. This included hundreds of subsidiary stations nationwide and dozens of Armed Forces Network (AFN) affiliates overseas. Several soft estimates vary on the population size of its viewers over the years, but all place it in the millions.

Notably, a large segment of The Big Picture audience was composed of military members, their families, and civilian government employees. For them, a portion of their exposure to the show came through the Armed Forces Information and Education Program (AFI&E), broadcast via the AFN, as episodes that provided lessons in American ideals. Overall, a survey of The Big Picture catalog shows that it offered a wide variety of episodes to satisfy the curiosity of viewers with an interest in the army and the military, particularly military history buffs, those with an interest in the Cold War and life in the military, and media historians. It also had an appeal for veterans from World War II through Vietnam, whose interest in specific titles flowed from their personal experience and memories or their affiliation with wartime units. Still, there is no source, survey or poll, which provides data specifically on the composition of The Big Picture’s audience. The catalog of episodes however, suggests titles that would have an appeal for these various groups both inside and outside the military.

There were dozens of features on military history and heritage, at least a score on emerging technologies, many on the army’s roles and missions, numerous on specific units, and a plethora on the army way of life. As this study reveals, all of these were the work of the Army Pictorial Center (APC) producers, who successfully adapted the template set by the popular compilation documentaries of the 1950s, ala Crusade in Europe and Victory at Sea, to create the Big Picture. They engaged emerging video and audio technologies, married with gripping camera work and script writing, to breathe life into the show’s narratives and grab the attention of their audience. By the time The Big Picture had run its course, it had garnered a number of awards from the Freedoms Foundation, a conservative think tank, as well as several Emmys from the more widely recognized National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Some particular episodes garnered special recognition. “The Song of the Soldier” (TV-725) received critical acclaim for the moving artistic performances of the army chorus and band, and John Huston’s World War II documentary “Battle of San Pietro” (TV-431) won accolades for its composition and direction under battlefield conditions. Further investigation of these productions, and the hundreds of others, also brings to light the centrality of Hollywood, its actors, directors, and skilled crew members, who contributed significantly to the creative process for the television series.

The Big Picture was the army’s effort to harness the energies emanating from Hollywood during the early Cold War decades. As the movie capital began producing films that addressed and exported American ideals, television, the new technological child, followed suit. This study locates The Big Picture in that slipstream. It argues that this show, like others produced for television during that time by the armed forces, served as a vehicle for directed propaganda, scripted to send important Cold War messages to those in uniform as well as to the American public. Using The Big Picture as the vehicle for this study, the book attempts to show how the producers incorporated specific Cold War themes, such as anticommunism, into episodes, and how the integration of various approaches facilitated those efforts. It also highlights the army’s continuing efforts to sell Americanism using The Big Picture as a conduit of the military’s Information and Education Program. In this context, the book situates The Big Picture series, a scion of television’s small screen, at the intersection of propaganda and policy during the Cold War period. It offers a perspective from a specific military-themed weekly series where there have been few previous comprehensive scholarly studies of this type. It amplifies existing studies such as Nancy Bernhard’s U.S. Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947–1960, Thomas Doherty’s Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture, and Anna Froula and Stacy Takacs’s American Militarism on the Small Screen. It completes the discussions about the influence of military-themed shows begun in single chapter and article pieces such as Jeffrey Crean’s “Something to Compete with Gunsmoke: The Big Picture Television Series and Selling a Modern, Progressive and Forward Thinking Army,” and J. Fred MacDonald’s “The Cold War as Entertainment in Fifties Television.” In addition, this study complements works such as Tony Shaw’s Hollywood’s Cold War and Lawrence Suid’s Guts and Glory: The Making of the American Military Image in Film. It accomplishes this by serving as a bridge between the big and small screens, particularly in the discussion of transitioning the military motif through The Big Picture into a weekly television series. In a similar manner, this work follows the adaptation of the compilation documentary form from the big ticket productions like Victory at Sea, as discussed by A. William Bluem in Documentary in American Television: Form, Function, Method, to a suitable weekly television serialization. Just as important, when examined from the perspective of students of media studies, this work offers insights into the development of a television series that was born of a collaboration between corporate networks and the military during the early tense years of the Cold War. In this context, it works through seldom investigated internal and external CINFO correspondence to unpack the struggles producers had in keeping the show relevant, within budget, and accessible to audiences.

Gaining an appreciation for the evolution of The Big Picture, its impact and influence on early Cold War American culture and society, and its effectiveness in shaping attitudes toward the army required an examination that plumbed the depths of the extensive number of episodes, located in various collections. Of those, the National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, Maryland, contained more than half. This investigative approach, which incorporated a close review of the films, was logical and essential to this work as being the most effective way to come to terms with the variety of subjects, the composition of the films, and the messages they communicated. It also shed light on the timing of the release of episodes, which this study notes became important to maximize the effectiveness of the delivery of the messages. It was in this that The Big Picture had an impact in proving the army’s relevancy during the Cold War competition with its sister services. Also important in this approach was the introduction of first-person voices. These appeared in several ways. The first was through interviews by the show’s first narrator, Captain Carl Zimmermann, who spoke in the studio with veterans of recent battlefield experience. This technique appeared in several of the early episodes, from “The Turning of the Tide” (TV-170) through “The UN Line Is Stabilized While Truce Talks Continue” (TV-181). Combat camera operators who captured eyewitness accounts on-site while filming also contributed interviews. Producers then wove these into episodes such as “Atrocities in Korea” (TV-242) and “Christmas in Korea” (TV-244) to lend a human voice to the narrative. These recordings, made during tactical operations in Korea, were very effective in adding a certain texture and poignancy to the framed moment, as were the in-studio interviews with veterans. The second manner in which producers incorporated personal impressions was through the accumulated experiences and reflections of service members, the public, and veterans who watched the show, postproduction. Although this provided a slightly altered viewpoint, these voices contributed to an understanding of the show’s impact and supported a grassroots perspective. This approach was important in completing a thorough evaluation of the television series in its role as a key representative of the army that sought to inform and educate viewers and offer the broadest range of perspectives from the mud-level through the highest echelons.

Relying on The Big Picture films to sketch a full story was, however, not without its challenges. Often, it appeared that other online sites offered many of the episodes missing from the NARA collection. Because this was the case, there was a wide variance in quality, and inconsistencies existed among titles and control numbers. The episodes found in the NARA archives were professionally digitized and complete, and included reference numbers as well as concise textual summaries. Although these were generally of a good quality, they had a certain amount of variation in the video and audio quality based on the limitations of the original films. Most episodes discovered through other online sources however, were of a lesser quality, as second- or third-generation copies, and suffered occasional rough editing that excluded the introduction or conclusion. Additionally, many contained no narrative summary. Often these non-NARA recordings carried no identifying catalog number, and sometimes they displayed titles that did not match the film content. There was also the potential for other-sourced films to disappear from an online site if original sources revoked permissions. Occasionally, when an episode was located both in the NARA archive and at an online source, the titles did not match. One other challenge, not often encountered, was that some films were not available digitally, either through an archive, such as NARA, or any other site. There were nine catalog numbers that did not have any reference or film associated with them. The designation “Not Available” indicates these in the catalog listing of this book. There were also some episode numbers listed in the catalog that research indicates the producers intentionally did not use. The designation “Not Used in the Big Picture Series” indicates those. That is the case for nine episode identifiers, TV-188, TV-195, TV-209, TV-405, and TV-497 through TV-501. The APC may have canceled their production while in progress, or blocked their release after completion for a number of reasons, including cost overrun or appropriateness of content. One example is “Your Army Reports Num-ber 17,” which is missing from the catalog with no explanation. It was also nearly the case for the eponymously titled episode “Atrocities in Korea” (TV-242), which this study addresses later. In addition to all of these, the NARA collection included a number of short film pieces that the Signal Corps cameramen made specifically for potential use in Big Picture episodes. Often these did not appear in the catalog. Among them were a series of interviews of soldiers on the front lines during the Korean War captured for possible incorporation into episodes about that conflict.⁵ Other brief supplemental films included scenes of helicopters, MASH units, and military chapel activities. Although these proved to be excess, and did not find their way into any production, they serve as examples of the extent that the APC dedicated manpower and resources to the production of the television series. Regardless of the variety, and complications and challenges found in the archives, more than enough episodes were available for this work to complete a comprehensive examination of The Big Picture series. This included viewing more than 200 hours of video footage to accomplish the study.

Another shortfall that became apparent while working with materials from the archives and other record repositories is an absence of documentation, such as letters, meeting memos, or notes, that corroborates certain decisions made in the production process for The Big Picture. Although there is documentation, cited in this study, to support discussions regarding the planning of some future episodes, reactions to budgetary shortfalls, distribution of films, and general operations, other areas lack this. For example, no documentation reports the development of episodes on race or gender, and no recorded evidence addresses the impact or influence of the Vietnam series of films on the American public. In cases such as this, this study relies on cinematic evidence to develop interpretations of the production process.

Based on the collection of films, the narrative of this study took a form that is both chronological and thematic. Within that structure the work appears into two sections. The first section, which is contained in chapters 1 and 2, investigates the origins of The Big Picture series following a chronological trail of its evolution and includes its relationship with emerging technology and early conceptualization. The second section, which includes chapters 3, 4, and 5, divides the film catalog into three general thematic subcategories with the intention of making the investigation more manageable. An initial survey indicated that the majority of episodes could easily be collected under one of these headings based on content and purpose. That approach served to situate each episode into one of the three categories, which are the Cold War, American exceptionalism, and the army way of life. These subcategories then form the framework for each of the three later chapters.

Chapter one of this study, “‘Welcome to The Big Picture,’” recounts the initial conceptualization of The Big Picture and the group of talented army officers that created the show from miles of underutilized combat camera footage of the Korean War. It explores the genesis of the series, describing the early production and directors and the development of a deeper catalog of titles. The chapter also introduces the Army Pictorial Center’s close relationship with Hollywood before and during the production of The Big Picture. This includes the use of popular actors, personalities, and skilled cinematographers from the film industry, who added their expertise to the creative process. It examines aspects of film form and techniques that production managers incorporated and exploited throughout the process to maximize the full effects of the media as a propaganda vehicle. This incorporates a discussion of the new, mutually beneficial partnership between the military and the television industry and the adoption of evolving video and audio technologies to facilitate a more effective reception of The Big Picture messages. It also examines the decision to transition the show from prime-time television slots to syndication as a means of reaching a wider audience and avoiding external commercial control. Overall, the chapter serves as a chronological springboard for those that follow and illuminates the three overarching subcategories.

Chapter 2, “Making the Army Relevant Again,” discusses the plethora of challenges the army faced to present itself as a relevant postwar branch of the service. To support that effort, The Big Picture offered a number of titles from its catalog that showcased the restructuring of the army to fit the mold of the New Look military and to engage with science and emerging technologies. This chapter presents that effort through an examination of episodes that highlight the service’s initiatives, and achievements, in space and north of the Arctic Circle as it competed with its sister branches of the military for recognition and resourcing. Also intrinsic to an examination of the trajectory of The Big Picture’s existence is an investigation of the slings and arrows of criticism that the series endured. These came principally from those elites and members of Congress who on occasion perceived the series as overstepping its bounds in attempting to shape and inform public opinion on issues of domestic and foreign policy. This becomes evident in a discussion of the series of episodes produced about the Vietnam War.

Chapter 3, “A Big Picture of the Cold War,” addresses the army’s central role in the nation’s Cold War defensive strategy through the lens of The Big Picture. The collection of episodes presented here lend themselves to selling an understanding of the fundamental tensions between the East and the West that formed the crucible of the contemporary geopolitical struggle. The study reveals how The Big Picture served as a weapon to deflect propaganda from the East and as a vehicle to explain to service personnel and the American public the concept of the containment strategy, the cornerstone of national defense. It also explains the special relationship between the United States and other nations through alliances that formed mutually supportive defense pacts. Here, it emphasizes that the United States “as leader in the free world has allied itself with other nations dedicated to the preservation of peace and the welfare of Mankind.”⁶ In addition, the chapter uses the lens of The Big Picture to offer explanations and insights to those critical moments in the games of brinksmanship between the superpowers that were typical of that tense period, such as construction of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis. In developing the Cold War view, the chapter refers to the more than eighty episodes that are collected here that painted a picture of America’s commitment to defend the West from an encroaching communist hegemony. The sights and sounds lent to the presentations by the films provide an informative and comprehensive understanding of the Cold War.

Chapter 4, “The Big Picture through an Exceptionalist Lens,” discusses those foundational ideals that shaped the American identity in the early post-1945 decades. The Big Picture took viewers down Main Street, USA, to reveal how Americans inculcated the exceptionalist ideals into their lives and how that influenced the tenets that became one with the American way of life. As an instrumental part of the military’s Information and Education Program, The Big Picture was key to informing and educating the military and the public on the “fundamental convictions of citizenship.”⁷ It contributed to this understanding through narratives that showed how these characteristics resonated in the daily lives of the nation’s people and soldiers, and reinforced it with images of parades and patriotic celebrations. Coupled to that was the centrality of religious worship, also described by The Big Picture as an essential element of the national ethos. As the episode “America on the Move” (TV-549) declared, “The film you are about to see was designed to sharpen the American serviceman’s sense of identity with the spirit and purpose of the nation he serves in this moment of historic urgency.”⁸ It is in this chapter that a fuller understanding of the uniqueness that Americans claim as their own right was an underpinning for the fabric of the national character as much as it was for the esprit of the military.

Chapter 5, “A Big Picture of the Army Way of Life,” provides a more grassroots view of the army through a lens that generally focuses on the issues that affected the daily lives of those in uniform and those associated with them. This subcategory of the study includes episodes that illuminate interesting facts about the history of the army and its heritage, subjects that captured the attention of viewers who were interested in that profession of arms. Also included are films that discuss the opportunities available through educational benefits, a path to upward mobility for soldiers, and discussions about army leadership. The latter discussed the various routes for advancement to the officer corps for enlisted personnel and provided background information about the processes, through West Point, ROTC, and OCS. Also very important to the army, and the military in general, was the issue of increasing diversity. This chapter investigates the ways that The Big Picture did double duty in that regard. First, the episodes recognize the army’s efforts at inclusion, reflecting the changes in contemporary society. This includes the challenges it faced and the reality of its shortcomings. Second, the show served as a recruitment tool for marginalized groups and women. To accomplish this, producers incorporated images and narratives that portrayed scenes of racially integrated units and narratives that spoke of the improved opportunities for women. In both instances, the films depicted minorities and women in positions of leadership. The show’s producers offered several episodes that emphasized the importance and contributions of the Army Nurse Corps and the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) over the years, featuring the women’s training center that was “commanded and staffed exclusively by women.”⁹

Chapter 5 also addresses the military’s involvement with community service. The APC produced episodes to inform the viewing public of the army’s participation at the national level in disaster relief efforts, at the local level to support youth programs, and as an informational platform to endorse special agendas such as President Kennedy’s fitness campaign. Above all, they were to underscore the army’s understanding of “the importance of being a good neighbor.”¹⁰ An additional view of life at the grassroots level appears in the introduction of episodes about entertainment for the troops. A number of shows discuss Hollywood’s commitment to raising the morale of soldiers deployed overseas during wartime and peacetime. Here, the script highlights the contributions made by nonprofit organizations such as the United Service Organizations (USO) and celebrates the role of popular entertainers such as Bob Hope in boosting spirits. Finally, the chapter includes a discussion on the centrality of civilian government employees as critical and necessary members of the army structure. This becomes evident through a number of episodes such as “The Army’s Civilians” (TV-726), which highlights their contributions at many levels for the military at home and abroad.

As this study reveals, The Big Picture television series was central to the army’s effort to tell its story, sell its relevance in the emerging Cold War, connect with the viewing audience, and deliver a message that would inform and educate viewers about American ideals. In that context, it also serves to contribute to the scholarly investigation of military-themed programming on television by offering an examination of “televisual depictions of the military and its operations.”¹¹ During the course of its two-decade production run the service used the series as a conduit to send messages to elites, the public, service members, and civilian government employees and their families that spoke to contemporary themes such as anticommunism and the ideals of American exceptionalism. On more than one occasion, The Big Picture became a target for critics who saw the series as exercising too much influence in its ability to shape public opinion, but this never seemed to detract fully from the popularity of the show. In the final analysis, The Big Picture was a successful public relations platform for the army that outlasted its contemporaries and provided an accurate depiction of army life and attitudes, while garnering accolades for the quality and variety of its productions. Considering the turbulent times, it also added a human face to those individuals who wore the uniform.