“Welcome to The Big Picture”

The crew that came together to move this project forward were not unacquainted with mass media communications. One of the first producers of The Big Picture, Carl Bruton, had worked for WTVJ radio in Miami prior to his service in Korea. David Burkey had spent time as a television producer, and the first series announcer, Carl Zimmermann, had worked as a writer for the Milwaukee radio station WEMP-AM. He had also seen service as an army broadcast correspondent during World War II.¹ Together with production supervisor William Brown Jr., and director Carl Flint, they would form the initial nucleus of the series production team at the Army Pictorial Center (APC) that worked under the supervision of Colonel Edward M. Kirby.² He would function as the first series distributor for the army in his position as head of the Radio-Television Branch, Office of Public Information, for the Department of the Army.³ With the creative team in place, production of The Big Picture could begin in earnest. This chapter explores the genesis of the series, describing its early production and directors and the eventual development of a deeper catalog of titles. It follows the APC’s close relationship with Hollywood before and during the production of The Big Picture and the new, mutually beneficial partnership between the military and the television industry. Also addressed is the adoption of evolving video and audio production technologies and the transition of the show away from prime-time television slots to syndication as a strategy to reach a wider audience.

The First Thirteen

Expanding on the close focus of battlefield experiences, the first thirteen episodes of The Big Picture concentrated exclusively on the Korean conflict. Against a video backdrop of fleeing refugees, columns of foot-weary soldiers, grinding tanks, and raucous artillery explosions, a somber voice-over presented each show to viewers with the explanation that “this is war, war and its masses, war and its men, war and its machines. Together they form The Big Picture.” After a brief fadeout, a uniformed Carl Zimmermann welcomed viewers with a serious, flat intonation:

Welcome to The Big Picture. I’m Captain Carl Zimmermann. The Big Picture is a report to you, from your army, an army committed by you, the people of the United States, to stop communist aggression wherever it may strike. The Big Picture during the next thirteen weeks will trace the course of events of the Korean campaign, with firsthand reports from our combat veterans and film taken by combat cameramen of the Army Signal Corps. These are men who daily record on film The Big Picture as it happens, where it happens.⁴

That statement regularly introduced each episode just as Zimmermann would conclude every show with a short summary of events and an invitation to viewers to return the following week. In addition, the closing series of images for each of these initial episodes displayed credits noting the documentary was a presentation of the US Army and a production of the Signal Corps Photographic Center. It also noted that Lieutenant Carl Bruton had been the original producer, thus providing a passing nod of recognition to another of the original creators of the series.

The focus of these first twenty-eight-minute-long episodes addressed the American experience in Korea from the first forty days of the conflict, through joint operations with United Nations troops and the ebb and flow of combat, to the final stabilization of a cease-fire line as both sides participated in truce talks.⁵ They offered a mud-level GI perspective, complementing it with a broader understanding of events. That provided a revised, elevated view through the context of a bigger picture of intents and purposes for US involvement in Korea. Leading narratives offered to mimic the dog-faced style of Ernie Pyle by claiming, “This story is best told in the language of the soldier who was there.”⁶ Scriptwriters capitalized on that approach and continually laced the text with on-the-ground expressions such as “Okay, we’re here to delay the Reds, let’s go!” and homespun comments like “The whole world had seen this [communist aggression] and knew what the score was.”⁷ Actors portraying typical GIs voiced these comments, and that comfortable, relatable dialogue ensured the attention of the average viewer. To reinforce this approach, Carl Zimmermann often conducted on-camera interviews of soldiers recently returned from the war regarding their experiences.

Figure 1.1. Captain Carl Zimmermann in the field. As did all of the other early Big Picture narrators, he would gain his experience interviewing and broadcasting while serving with the US Army Signal Corps during wartime. (Image Source: Rich Zimmermann)

Figure 1.2. Captain Carl Zimmermann on the set of The Big Picture at the Signal Corps Pictorial Center in late 1951. He was the first narrator and remained the face of the series through the forty-first episode (TV-210). (Image Source: Rich Zimmermann)

Always aware of their commitment to provide a bigger picture of ongoing events, the show’s producers complemented the film scripts with more expansive explanations. For this Korean War series, it would include the use of visual displays, such as graphics depicting operational troop movements on a map of the Korean peninsula. Carl Zimmermann always accompanied these with an explanation describing the larger theater campaign and related actions. Another technique was the production of episodes that described the wider role of the United Nations’ involvement as part of the coalition of forces, and the United States’ relationship to those nations.⁸ The narrative also made frequent reference to the actions and decision making of higher-ranking officers involved in the peninsular campaign, such as General Douglas MacArthur. Ernie Pyle might have agreed that this short thirteen-episode documentary series had adequately addressed the narrow grassroots focus as well as a broader perspective of the war. The existence of this collection of films contradicts some statements suggesting that the military made little effort to capture the Korean conflict on camera. As the art curator at the Army Center for Military History noted, there had been “no organized effort by either the Army or the private sector, to visually capture the Korean War, so the Army’s collection has relatively few images of that war.”⁹ As The Big Picture series proves, this is not the case.

This initial body of episodes, which aired on CBS, set the tone for the show and became a model for the successful Big Picture series that would eventually produce more than 800 episodes over the following twenty years. However, more than simply satisfying the curiosity of service members and the American public, these early films also set several important production goals that framed the content of future Big Picture episodes.

Coming into Focus

Foremost among the initial goals set for the series was a clear anticommunist assertion. Just as Carl Zimmermann would declare, The Big Picture was a report from the army to the American people on the actions taken to check communist aggression “wherever it may strike.” That pronouncement came at a time when former wartime allies, particularly the Soviet Union and China, had suddenly transformed into adversaries on the post-1945 global stage. As the United States was engaged in a new game of geopolitical brinksmanship, which included a dangerous nuclear dynamic, it was important that the nation bring to bear all available tools and weapons to deflect the perceived hegemonic intentions of the communists. The Big Picture would serve as a Cold War clarion call to shake viewers to wakefulness and action. It would deliver messages of warning about new enemies’ evil designs while highlighting America’s resoluteness and successes in defending the exceptional American way of life.¹⁰ Although at times dampened, that theme would remain constant throughout the entire series, as this study will show.

After the initial run of thirteen episodes, other goals began to emerge, such as the maintenance of a strong bond between the army and the American public. Telling the “army story” was a key to cultivating that relationship. The Big Picture would contain scripted narratives that offered a multidimensional image of the soldier, cast in the light of a contemporary “sentimental militarism.”¹¹ It presented them in heroic form as guardians of American values, defenders against evil, and rescuers of those in need.¹² In addition, it would depict soldiers as ambassadors of goodwill to other nations, and in a more human light show them as citizens, family members, and individuals with basic needs.¹³ Episodes would showcase them in the mold of the citizen-soldier of the new army, a product of a greater democratization.¹⁴ One of the techniques used in cementing that bond was the periodic production of army heritage stories that cast the service in a historical light. The series did this by weaving the army’s past accomplishments and sacrifices into the broader tapestry of American history. Episodes such as “The History of Cavalry” (TV-382), “Patterns of History” (TV-550), “Old Glory” (TV-625), and “Our Heritage” (TV-684) showcased the army’s role in America’s past and plucked at a common patriotic chord. Other episodes that focused on the history of particular military units or posts, or on World War II campaigns and battles, played on the same emotion by creating a connection with veterans who may have seen service then. Nicholas Worontsoff Jr., recalls watching the show with his father, a World War II veteran:

It was on TV on Saturday mornings, very early, like 7:00 AM. The show I remember the most was the one I watched with Dad. He somehow learned that an episode was going to be about Fort Monmouth. Dad was stationed at Fort Monmouth I believe after he was first inducted. This was the training center for the Signal Corps of which Dad was in. I remember Dad watching the program and pointing out buildings he remembered, or was in and whether it was used for training, or barracks, etc. Also he recognized some of the men that were shown. I guess he was really interested in seeing whether he was in any of the film footage. Back then we did not have the ability to tape the show, or rewind or watch in slow motion. I don’t remember him pointing himself out.¹⁵

Consequently, The Big Picture was a point of contact between the army and the American public, serving as “a mediating point between the Army’s internal image-makers and the wider world of public opinion.”¹⁶

The majority of ideas for these heritage series came from information officers (IO) stationed at various posts who wished to see their particular units or locations recognized for their historical contributions. Another important source were senior military commanders who also felt recognition was due for their particular branch of the service. One example was a recommendation from the chief of the Armored Section of the US Continental Army Command, who requested that the APC produce an episode on the history of the armor branch. This request came after he had viewed “The History of Cavalry” (TV-382).¹⁷ For years the army continued to produce these heritage films seeking to attract a supportive public audience and to celebrate its remarkable past. By 1959, however, Colonel John Weaver, chief of the Troop Information Division, began to view these episodes with a jaundiced eye. In a letter to Colonel W. E. Slisher, Fifth Army chief, Information Section, he opined that these were fast becoming “innocuous” documentaries “that display the Army of the past. A good Army and one with a great history—BUT it is an Army that is not comparable to the Army of today.”¹⁸ He thought the series was suffering “excessive dependence on past glories.”¹⁹ This concern sprang from worries that the army was failing to achieve an Atomic Age relevance. It was his opinion that the APC needed to shift the focus of its production to Big Picture episodes that promoted the army as a modernizing force. Over time, producers gradually set aside development of additional heritage series projects in favor of those that showed the army as more competitive with the other services. For example, this new approach appeared in episodes that featured army operations above the Arctic Circle, such as “Operation Lead Dog” (TV-494), and those that highlighted the collaboration between the army and industry, as in “Partners in Progress” (TV-505). Although the heritage episodes did not disappear completely, they did begin to lose some of their production momentum.

Another purpose the Big Picture series served was to act as an advertising platform to gain and maintain the confidence and interest of the elites in power, particularly in Congress. Aside from being informational, these episodes were video appeals that hoped to shape the outcome during interservice wrangling for favorable resource allocations. All of this was important to the army, as well as each of the other services, during the annual round of budgetary and appropriations discussions on Capitol Hill, as each branch attempted to project itself as the most important for national defense, and the neediest. Under such circumstances, the Big Picture series could hope to garner support for army programs, technology, and weapons systems. Lawrence Suid, historian of military-related films, alludes to that interservice competition when he notes that the navy, like the army, “maintained that it was trying to have filmmakers present the service, in the best light possible,” with the hope “to achieve that aim in time.”²⁰ For the army this was a matter of survival in its competition with the other two services, which were more reliant on costly weapons systems. In this, the army struggled to answer the perennial question, “What role, if any, did conventional force play with respect to the deterrence of Soviet aggression?”²¹ The shadow of that challenge appeared in the successive 1953–1956 rounds of Pentagon allocations, which reduced the army’s operating budget by half. By 1957, the military’s budget was $34 billion—$16 billion to the air force (49 percent), $10 billion to the navy (29 percent), and $7.5 billion to the army (22 percent).²² This would remain a critical issue for the army until the early 1960s, when funding for operations in Vietnam would demand an increase across the board for all the services. But until then, the Big Picture series would serve as the vehicle to communicate the army’s relevance through modernization and technological advancement, subjects explored in greater detail later in this study. For example, episodes such as “Meeting Tomorrow’s Challenge” (TV-765) and “Pioneering for Tomorrow” (TV-815) were aired to assure the viewer that their modern army was forward thinking while suggesting that support and resourcing were necessary ingredients for future success. Although its purpose was to tout the army, the Big Picture nevertheless did with a spirit of bonhomie, and only after global tensions increased, air several episodes that celebrated the other services.²³ While it is difficult to determine the direct influence that the Big Picture series had on congressional decision-making, it did leave an impression.

Between 1957 and 1986, congressional hearings referenced The Big Picture three times, and the Congressional Record referenced it an additional fifteen times. Although those comments were not linked to funding of specific technologies or weapons systems, they did provide opportunities to keep The Big Picture, and the army, current in the minds of individual members of both houses and select committees. This was the case with references to the television series during the congressional hearings of 1956 and 1958 regarding allocations of television frequencies for the rapidly expanding national and regional television audiences of America. In each of these hearings, television executives from around the nation included The Big Picture when citing examples of educational and informational programming that viewers preferred. In January 1958, John R. Holden, national legislative director, AMVETS, testified to oppose a proposal to make all television viewing subscription based, noting that it would threaten the “destruction of our traditional free method of TV” and levy heavy costs on military veterans who could ill afford them.²⁴ He further stated that the associated loss of commercial advertising would jeopardize funding of “programs on behalf of public-service organizations,” fearing that “national-defense programs would be eliminated” including “Armed Forces programs,” in particular “patriotic programs [such] as the Big Picture.”²⁵

The Congressional Record contains references to The Big Picture beginning in 1957. Representative Charles O. Porter from Oregon inserted that first mention of the show into the record. It was a simple letter from a fourth-grade student to his teacher in support of a recorded version of the “Pledge of Allegiance.” The recording grabbed the student’s attention when he heard it played in school and he commented, “When our teacher plays that record it makes me think of ‘The Big Picture’ (it is a television program).”²⁶ This at the very least was recognition that The Big Picture was associated with a patriotic consciousness and was having some impact among a younger American demographic. Still other references followed. In June and September 1968 mention of the Big Picture was made by representatives of the National Rifle Association (NRA) who in cooperation with the army produced an episode titled “To Keep and Bear Arms” (TV-557). This was a part of the association’s annual “special public service publicity campaign” that raised citizens’ awareness about rights and responsibilities regarding the ownership of weapons.²⁷ At the time, this type of publicity also helped underscore in the minds of some members of Congress The Big Picture’s place as an educational and informational vehicle. A report in the 5 December 1969 Congressional Record gave proof to the widespread distribution of the series, noting that The Big Picture “is shown on overseas American Forces Television and in the United States on 313 commercial stations and 53 educational stations.”²⁸ These types of credentials spoke of the popularity and usefulness of the series as a platform for dissemination of information to service members and the American public as it shared episodes from its deep catalog of several hundred titles. But these statistics also attest to the early marriage, and long association, of The Big Picture to television and how the rapid explosion in growth of that new cutting-edge mass communications medium propelled the documentary series into homes across the nation and around the globe.

The Arrival of Television

Just three years after World War II, radio still maintained the upper hand as the primary source of news and entertainment in the nation’s homes. Still, four regular networks were broadcasting to about one million television sets from twenty-one stations.²⁹ These reached just as far west as the Mississippi River and linked a simple triad of urban areas, New York City, Philadelphia, and the Washington Capitol District.³⁰ By some accounts it was still considered a uniquely “urban phenomenon.”³¹ Almost 50 percent of those television households were in the New York City area alone.³² But aside from geography, another governor on the spread of television and its technology was a freeze put in place in September 1950 on the issuance of additional station licenses by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This was a result of its internal bureaucracy that was overwhelmed by a flood of requests.³³ Aside from the volume of applications, a requirement to negotiate the allocation of signals to issue to the new stations to assure noninterference, as well as equitable coverage, compounded the situation.³⁴ Exacerbating matters further was the May 1948 FCC standard designating that the distances separating stations on adjacent channels and stations on the same channel could be not be less than 75 miles and 200 miles respectively.³⁵ The consequences of the freeze, which lasted until May 1952, “left the first 108 VHF stations with the choicest network and advertising affiliations.”³⁶ This provided a greater advantage of coverage to both NBC and CBS over the newcomers, ABC and DuMont.³⁷ Nevertheless, after several years all these limitations eventually dissipated with the arrival of the Eisenhower administration and the loosening of restrictions.

By 1951, 22 percent of American households had a television, and with the freeze on licensing of stations finally lifted in 1952 that number jumped to nearly 32 percent.³⁸ That same year the television networks and their affiliates would finally span the continent, reaching eager viewers on the West Coast. Mid-1955 saw the number of households with a TV set increase to 64 percent.³⁹ It quickly reached 87 percent by the start of the next decade.⁴⁰ Certainly, by that time “television had become a living room fixture, ascendant not only over radio but motion pictures and, so it seemed, all of American culture.”⁴¹ It is easy to understand why at that time NBC president Sylvester “Pat” Weaver posited it would soon become “the shining center of the home.”⁴² This sentiment, plus television’s phenomenal growth, was the result of two dynamics, a postwar consumerist urge and the exigencies of the Cold War. The first was a happy consequence of a robust economy that saw retooled factories producing goods for consumption by a populace demanding washing machines, vacuums, and cars as they migrated from cities out to suburbia. In this, television provided a golden opportunity for entertainers and commercial enterprises to both construct and sate the needs and desires of millions of ready television viewers. The second dynamic—the Cold War—provided a raison d’être for news organizations and politicians to exploit television’s utility and reach into homes to inform and shape Americans’ thinking about the state of global affairs.

As historian Jonathan Kahana notes, although television was “the poor cousin of literature, theater or cinema” it was still a “machine that breaches the division between the home and the world by generating emotion” from the viewer.⁴³ It was that ability to establish a connectedness between the two that was one of its unique characteristics. This in turn, facilitated an easy and intimate connection between the audience and the small screen. Television provided instant access to the world and it “transmitted an alphabet of meaning that required only the senses of sight and sound, not the tedious diligence of book learning.”⁴⁴ In that context it arrived at a time when the Cold War was heating up and news magnates, elites in Washington, and generals in the Pentagon needed the cathode-ray conduit to reach with authority into Americans’ living rooms to offer information that shaped anticommunist impressions, and ensured an exceptional view of America.

Among the first grainy black-and-white reality experiences to reach the post-1945 American television audiences and capture their attention was NBC’s coverage of the 1948 Republican and Democratic National Conventions. For this, viewership was small because of the limitation in the number of devices and the scarcity of broadcasting stations. But the connection was significant. The public could now sense the immediacy of events as they occurred. Then, by 1951, with television ownership rapidly expanding, many more Americans became at-home witnesses to the drama that unfolded during the second round of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings.⁴⁵ Here it was, in front of banks of television cameras broadcasting to a national audience, that Senator “Tail Gunner Joe” McCarthy’s theatrics and infamous anticommunist diatribes captured attention and stoked hysteria. Building on that energy, television’s “combination of mass outreach with the potential for deep individual engagement” and the potential for immediacy made it attractive as a messenger service for Cold War propaganda.⁴⁶ As America appeared to be assaulted from within and without, with perceptions of communist infiltration at home and naked aggression abroad on the Korean peninsula, it seemed apparent to television magnates that “every citizen wishes to know as much as possible about the [military] services which will defend” the nation.⁴⁷ That was the moment military leaders realized the door was open and opportunity was beckoning.

The transition from the big screen to television was an easy one for the military. Beginning with the golden days of the services’ collaboration with the Hollywood studios prior to World War II, the partnership had been long and mutually beneficial. At that time, the film industry had scripted into celluloid form numerous triumphant stories laced with exciting selfless acts of heroism by the army, navy, and marines, men who kept the nation out of harm’s way.⁴⁸ The studios benefited from the free use of military facilities and equipment, and big returns at the box office. In return, the services were able to demonstrate their patriotic fervor, showcase their arsenals of democracy, gain support of the public and Congress, and lure young men to the recruiting office. In the early postwar years, as the Cold War storm clouds gathered, it seemed a natural and necessary consequence that the union of video producers and military would easily make the transition from large screen to small. Gaining a full appreciation of The Big Picture’s appearance on the television screen is possible through an understanding of the emergence of the army’s association with that medium.

A New Partnership

Aiding in the military’s transition to television was the office of the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs (ASDPA). Formed in 1949, it evolved from the postwar reorganization of the military establishment under the National Security Bill, which brought the services together under one Department of Defense (DOD). The ASDPA in turn created the Office of Public Information (OPI), charging it with serving as a clearinghouse for information shared with the public and various forms of media, including the news outlets. The OPI itself consisted of five internal branches: press, magazine and book, pictorial, public relations, and radio-television. The mission of the last was “to assist radio and television networks and independent stations in keeping the public informed of the activities of the national military establishment.”⁴⁹ This became important as television executives realized that Cold War informational programs “attained legitimacy when attached to the military,” and their association could “promote American military supremacy” while underscoring the need to continue its resourcing.⁵⁰ As a result, an apparatus came into existence that would facilitate the continued mutually beneficial relationship between the military and television.

In this symbiosis, the networks and affiliates contributed free air time to the partnership, and the military brought materiel and public trust. One estimate for 1950 was that the networks provided approximately $1.7 million in free airtime to DOD programming.⁵¹ This was significant, considering the approximate cost of producing a typical thirty-minute television show in the early 1950s was $20,000.⁵² The importance of that exposure could not be underestimated. As Radio-Television (R-T) Branch chief Charles Dillon noted at the time, the vast radio and television networks spanning the nation combined to reach “100 million Americans daily with information concerning the Defense Department.”⁵³ In return, the military establishment released a variety of films for networks’ use, provided clips for newsreels, and supplied production advisors for shows containing military content. Just as important, during the Korean conflict, when civilian camera crews were not on-site in the combat zone, the military worked to provide the networks with live-action film footage for their television affiliates and satisfied their requests for on-the-ground interviews.

One of the first military shows to reach viewers was Crusade in Europe. Based on the best-selling wartime memoirs of the former commander of Allied Forces in Europe, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it was the first documentary series produced for television and included combat footage from World War II. Produced by Time, Inc. as part of their March of Time series, the program aired on ABC from 5 May to 27 October 1949 and consisted of twenty-six half-hour episodes. Crusade in Europe joined the March of Time catalog alongside other American exceptionalist Cold War productions intended to shape the public’s view with titles such as The Cold War: Act I, II and III, as well as America’s New Air Power and Answer to Stalin.⁵⁴ Media critics and the public, many of whom were veterans of the overseas conflict, provided the documentary series with a warm reception. Recognized for its excellence as Best Public Service Cultural or Educational Program, Crusade in Europe received both the prestigious Peabody Award and an Emmy for Prime Time Television in 1950.⁵⁵ For many years critics considered it the gold standard for televised documentaries, and it set expectations for military programming that would follow. It didn’t hurt that the central figure, Dwight Eisenhower, would soon gain recognition as an advocate for the new medium.

Although some historians confer the title of “first television President” on John F. Kennedy, because of his on-camera presence and exploitation of the media’s capabilities, it was actually Eisenhower who blazed the trail.⁵⁶ Early in his presidency Ike became convinced of television’s potential to reach the masses, and he staged the first televised fireside chats, the first televised cabinet meetings, and the first TV news conferences. To facilitate this he hired the first presidential TV consultant and had the first White House studio installed.⁵⁷ The president also preferred television over Hollywood when telling the military’s story because he felt that the “big screen would render history too theatrical.”⁵⁸ Eisenhower was also the first to “use TV as a bully pulpit,” but his audience listened with an open trust because they “believed he had sound judgment, that he would keep them safe.”⁵⁹ He was “Ike,” the war leader who brought them through tough times to final victory. Consequently, it was his “wartime interest in propaganda and psychological warfare [that] carried over into his own Presidential administration.”⁶⁰ So it was that he understood the potential power of the television and its place in the American home. Eisenhower’s popular success with Crusade in Europe and his subsequent endorsement of the small screen lent energy to the emerging genre of military documentaries and shows that arrived in the 1950s.

Arriving close on the heels of Crusade in Europe was the Armed Forces Hour. It aired from 30 October 1949 to 11 June 1950 on twenty nine NBC affiliate stations on Sundays, then from 5 February 1951 to 6 May 1951 on fifty-six stations of the DuMont network.⁶¹ However, it was not cut from the same cloth as Crusade in Europe. The Armed Forces Hour, which actually ran in thirty-minute segments once a week, was not a documentary but instead was created specifically as a made-for-television production. It featured episodes with titles such as “Up Periscope” and “Normandy Revisited” cobbled together from millions of feet of existing footage archived by the military. But it also included programmed performances by military bands and occasionally showcased the talents of singing and dancing military members. A creation of DOD, it was hosted by Maj. Robert P. Keim (USAF) and Lt. Benjamin S. Greenberg (USNR) of the PIO.⁶² DOD had hoped that the program would serve as a tool to connect with the public while selling the armed forces and putting a human face on the individuals who were serving.

After only two months however, NBC voiced its disappointment over the content of the Armed Forces Hour, which left it with failed expectations. According to network executives, the show lacked the immediacy of breaking news as well as the unrehearsed exchanges of a talk show featuring a panel of correspondents. Sensitive to the idea of a potentially spontaneous format, which a DOD program could ill afford, R-T Branch chief Dillon attempted to establish a middle ground with NBC by recommending that any questions posed by journalists on the show be scripted prior to airing, or that a question of the week be posed in advance by commentators, with enough lead time to craft an appropriate answer. In the end, NBC did not warm to that suggestion and did not welcome the show back. After a hiatus of several months, however, DuMont picked it up for a short stint. This experience with the Armed Forces Hour was neither a rejection of the military establishment by NBC, nor of its commitment to provide a pulpit for Cold War propaganda. Instead, the network’s need to navigate a course between its perceived patriotic duty and the pragmatism of maintaining high prime-time ratings provided the rationale. What the failure of Armed Forces Hour did provide, however, was a hard lesson in acceptable formatting and content for DOD and the PIO. This would resonate in the litany of television programs that followed and in the measure of effectiveness they achieved.⁶³

Intentional or not, NBC’s termination of the Armed Forces Hour during the summer of 1950 coincided with the invasion of South Korea by its communist neighbor to the north.⁶⁴ Reacting quickly to that event, the network participated in a unique collaboration with the Truman administration to produce Battle Report—Washington, a weekly show that featured both commentary on the wartime events transpiring in Korea and a steady diet of hard-edged anticommunist propaganda. This was a format that was absent on the Armed Forces Hour. Battle Report would air from 13 August 1950 to 20 April 1952 for a total of eighty-six episodes. For its part in the collaboration, NBC generally provided the technical expertise and airtime, while the administration drafted key personnel from the military establishment and government offices to appear on the show and generated the scripts from their staffs. Produced in the White House office of John R. Steelman, special assistant to the president, Battle Report had a purpose in consonance with the prevailing contemporary exceptionalist consensus. It sought to polish the image of the American way of life and provide a rallying point for the American people against an external enemy and conflicting ideologies. In addition, it proposed to give “the people of the United States a firsthand account of what the Federal government is doing in the worldwide battle against Communism.”⁶⁵

Unfortunately, as public support for the war began to waver with battlefield reverses in late 1950 early 1951, so did interest in the show. Compounding this was the fact that a number of officials scheduled to appear before the Battle Report cameras began canceling due to other commitments. In addition, other networks, together with increasingly vocal Republicans, began leveling charges of political partisanship against NBC. That criticism was hard to dodge considering this was a show produced in a Democratic White House and scripted by Truman’s special assistant and staff. That same year, as the Korean conflict ground to a stalemate at the thirty-eighth parallel, production costs continued to mount, and NBC struggled to find support from commercial advertising, generally because of the partisanship charges. Taken together, these challenges became a heavy burden, and by the spring of 1952, NBC made an executive decision to cancel Battle Report—Washington.

In the larger context, NBC was not the only network pulled into the media frenzy of the Korean crisis. Both CBS and DuMont launched their own series to chart the unfolding conflict in Asia as well as to highlight the increased Cold War tensions between the East and the West.⁶⁶ CBS aired The Facts We Face (concurrently with NBC’s program, August 1950–April 1952) and Crisis in Korea (spring 1951). DuMont followed several months later with Pentagon (May 1951–November 1952), which began immediately after the final episode of its version of The Armed Forces Hour. CBS’s The Facts We Face closely mimicked the format of NBC’s Battle Report, including having its scripts endorsed by the Truman White House. Noted television news anchors Willard F. Shadel and Walter Cronkite were its only two commentators. The format for Crisis in Korea was essentially straight documentary filming sans editorializing. This won high praise from Variety magazine, which lauded CBS for letting the “documented film speak for itself.”⁶⁷ DuMont’s short-lived Pentagon (aka Pentagon Washington) had a mixed format of stock film and interviews, but like The Facts We Face and Battle Report it also fell victim to a variety of challenges, particularly declining public interest and dwindling funding from commercial interests. Still, these shows collectively carried an anticommunist, exceptionalist American charter crafted to both inform and alert the public regarding insidious and dangerous threats from the Soviet-led East. A fuller discussion of how the US Army’s production The Big Picture, which premiered in December 1951, folded into this mix of shows appears later in this chapter.

During the remainder of the decade, as the energies from the Korean War wound down, the belligerents drew back from a dangerous game of brinksmanship to settle into a brooding Cold War watchfulness. The cut and thrust of East-West diplomacy and proxy actions that followed sculpted a geopolitical landscape that demanded cautious navigation and determined ideologies. This environment served as a functional backdrop to tense times that saw the creation of the 1955 Warsaw Pact as a counterbalance to NATO, the 1956 Hungarian revolution, the 1957 launching of Sputnik I, and the troubling birth of socialist Cuba in January 1959.⁶⁸ Americans bore witness to these events through the somber gray eyes of television. Just as they had digested the information served to them by shows such as Battle Report–Washington or The Facts We Face, they now watched in fitful attentiveness as events unfolded in their living rooms while they sat hunched over their TV dinners. In July 1959, television cameras captured the sharp repartee between Vice President Richard Nixon and Premier Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union as they exchanged ideological ripostes during the now famous Kitchen Debate at the American National Exhibition at Sokolniki Park in Moscow. In a moment of contested symbolism, Nixon advocated for supremacy of American consumer goods while conceding to Khrushchev the superiority of Soviet rocketry.⁶⁹ Concerning television, however, Nixon boasted of America’s technological edge, while his perplexed counterpart could only respond, unconvincingly, that his nation would eventually match the achievement. It was here, on this international stage, that television had arrived at the important intersection of technology, consumerism, and politics, and came of age in the American century. By 1959, there were approximately forty-four million television sets in the United States, and networks could sense the increased urgency to exploit that technology to deliver their pressing Cold War missives.⁷⁰

It was against that mosaic of Cold War events that the CBS, NBC, and ABC television networks, together with the air force and navy as coproducers, continued to offer shows that centered on the military establishment and endorsed its mission to defend the nation and advocate the tenets of Americanism. Among these were the armed forces documentary series On Guard (ABC, April 1952–May 1954), Navy Log, a dramatized series (CBS, 1955–1956, then ABC, 1956–1958), Uncommon Valor, a documentary series about the US Marine Corps (NBC, 1956–1957), Adventure Tomorrow, a series about rocketry and missile research (ABC, 1957–1960), and Flight, the history of the US Air Force (US Air Force, 1958–1959).

In parallel with the network offerings, the navy chose to develop two additional documentary series that were popular successes. The first mirrored Eisenhower’s Crusade in Europe. Titled Crusade in the Pacific, it was a production of Time, Inc. as part of their March of Time series. It aired from 1951 to 1952 for twenty-six episodes on ABC and included, with a broad view, film and commentary on the Allies’ victorious campaign against Japan in the Pacific during World War II, as well as the ongoing Korean conflict. The final episode addressed future relations between the United States and Asia, and unsurprisingly, the need to curtail the spread of communism there. The second series focused on the US Navy’s triumphal island-hopping advance across the Pacific to defeat the Japanese and carried the title Victory at Sea. Produced for NBC by Henry “Pete” Salomon, it ran from October 1952 to May 1953 on the network that edited, wrote, and coproduced it with the navy.⁷¹ Critically acclaimed for its well-scripted narrative, its integration of combat film footage, and an impressive musical score written by Richard Rodgers and conducted by Robert Russell Bennett, Victory at Sea won a Peabody Award in 1952, an Emmy in 1954 as Best Public Affairs Program, and the George Washington Medal from the conservative, patriotic Freedoms Foundation.⁷² It was an epic work that celebrated an artistic “blend of military splendor and moral righteousness.”⁷³ The opening credits, in bold lettering with Rodgers’s symphonic melody rising behind it, heralded NBC’s connection with the service in a way that could only have made the network proud of the association and the praise it garnered: “A Production of the National Broadcasting Company in Cooperation with the United States Navy.”

Title of Show	Air Dates	Awards and Notes
Crusade in Europe	5 May 1949–27 Oct 1949 (ABC) 26 episodes	1949 Peabody Award and Emmy Award (Best Public Service Cultural or Educational Program) Sponsor Time Magazine Produced by March of Time
Armed Forces Hour	30 Oct 1949–11 Jun 1950 (NBC)
Battle Report—Washington	13 Aug 1950–20 Apr 1952 (NBC)
The Facts We Face	Aug 1950–1952 (CBS)
Armed Forces Hour	4 Feb 1951–6 May 1951 (DuMont)
Pentagon	6 May 1951–24 Nov 1952(DuMont)
The Big Picture	December 1951-December 1971 (CBS, ABC, and DuMont) 828 episodes	1960–1970 George Washington Honor Medal 1967 International Film Festival Award 1968 Emmy (Special Award)
Crusade in the Pacific 2	1951–1952 (ABC) (March of Time) 6 episodes	Sponsor Time Magazine Produced by March of Time
On Guard	28 Apr 1952–29 May 1954 (ABC)
Victory at Sea	26 Oct 1952–3 May Apr 1953 1952 Peabody Award (NBC)	1952 Peabody Award (Special Award)
Navy Log	1955–1956 (CBS) 1956–1958 (ABC) 103 episodes	Dramatized series
Uncommon Valor	1956–1957 (NBC) (Syndicated) 26 episodes
Adventure Tommorow	Apr 1957-Jul 1960 (ABC)
Flight	1958–1959 (US Air Force) (Syndicated) 39 episodes

Table 1.1. Military television shows that aired during the period 1949–1959. Included are documentaries as well as anthologies. Although The Big Picture did not premiere until December 1951, it was the longest lasting. The final episode was broadcast in December 1971. Sources: Nancy Bernhard, U.S. Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947–1960 and Alex McNeil, Total Television.

Trailing three years behind Victory at Sea came Air Power, a CBS documentary series coproduced with the US Air Force.⁷⁴ The network cooperated with the service in developing scripts and weaving “some 300 million feet of film” from the air force archives into twenty-six episodes in the hope of creating a show to rival the navy’s earlier success.⁷⁵ Its purpose was to portray the story of air power in the United States and around the world, from the earliest beginnings to modern times. In favorable comparison to its predecessor, the television audiences most appreciated the exciting moments in Air Power that portrayed the “drama of men and machines at war.”⁷⁶ Producers again enlisted the well-recognized voice of newscaster Walter Cronkite as narrator for the show, and several active-duty air force generals portrayed themselves during dramatized versions of actual events. Unfortunately for the show, it drew criticisms throughout its run. Perry Wolff, the CBS producer, eschewed the inherent “special pleading from military interests” as well as the perceived projection of air force power as the ultimate means to American world domination.⁷⁷ This he made quite clear during an interview years later when he stated that the show was “pure propaganda” and that the Air Force had guys telling me what to do.”⁷⁸ He also groused when told he needed “official sanction for the series outline.”⁷⁹ Another well-known newscaster, Edward R. Murrow, claimed that some episodes distorted history, and General Scott, former director of the Air Force Office of Information Service, charged that the same episodes were too anti-American in tone. Air Power did however, attract a large viewing audience and did turn profits for CBS, but it never achieved the same level of popular acclaim as Victory at Sea and would always remain in its shadow.

Alone, Victory at Sea stood as “a landmark in documentary film-making technique,” but more important, coupled with the trio of Crusade in Europe, Crusade in the Pacific, and Air Power, their influence established the military documentary as a popular, viable television genre.⁸⁰ These compilation documentaries, created from existing archives files, integrated with dramatic stories and an evocative musical score, were the new version of authenticity born from the style of World War II productions. As historian A. William Bluem notes in his study of the documentary in American television, these compilation series were born of the tradition of works such as Frank Capra’s Why We Fight. They “showed men a different method of presenting reality” in which “the artists—director, film editor, writer, narrator, and composer—could seek, each within his own craft, common and purposeful thematic expression.”⁸¹ This dynamic resonated through those March of Time productions and the documentary television series that would follow.

The Big Picture on a Small Screen

Although it was not among the earlier Big Picture episodes produced by the Army Pictorial Center, the story of “TV in the Army” (TV-265), which aired in 1954, was a timely description of how the service recruited that new technology to serve its needs. It was seen then as “one of the most unique and versatile devices now being used by your Army” to educate, train, and inform the soldier.⁸² Always aware that the investigation and application of new technology was a necessary pursuit, the film discussed the army’s experimentation with television to determine how to best maximize its use. In this process, it quickly came to understand that when aired over commercial networks, televised military shows would “bring the Army closer to the American people.”⁸³ So it was, as the narrator explained, that “by combining technical knowhow and human imagination with the electronic magic of television the Army is employing one of the most direct and effective methods devised for keeping the soldier and civilian well-informed.”⁸⁴ Accordingly, the episode observed, “that is the big picture, the picture of your army looking forward to the future security of the nation through the eyes of television.”⁸⁵ A follow-on episode, titled “Pictorial Report No. 23” (TV-342), expanded on this theme by heralding the army’s new lightweight portable television camera, which made it easier to capture training events and activities. As the narrator proudly announced, “This camera is an example of just one more step forward in your army’s technological search for new equipment to do a better job in less time.”⁸⁶ In that regard, the army realized what a keen advantage television offered in maintaining its reputation and relevancy in the Cold War and how the Big Picture could figure prominently in that effort.

The first thirteen episodes of The Big Picture, as conceived by Carl Zimmerman and Carl Bruton, were a dedicated effort to weave together thousands of feet of unused Army Signal Corps film of the war in Korea into a visual narrative of the action. They wanted to tell the story, and share the experiences as Ernie Pyle might have wished, from the grassroots perspective to the wider-angled bigger picture, as historian Lawrence Suid explained, to “capture the ambience of battle.”⁸⁷ This would be the essence of “translating Pyle’s words into visual drama.”⁸⁸ Caught up in the same rush of frenzied energy as the television networks to exploit the immediacy of the new media, the Zimmermann-Bruton team went to work in earnest, and as expeditiously as possible, using existing resources. By the time this initial project had run its course in December 1952, with the last episode highlighting the continuing truce talks (“The UN Line Is Stabilized While Truce Talks Continue,” TV-181), The Big Picture had established a presence, and the US Army producers realized they were onto something special and necessary. While that final episode was a coda to the first thirteen weeks, it also served as the start point for the longest run of a televised military documentary series and what was “probably the most widely televised public service program in history.”⁸⁹

Figure 1.3. Image of scaffolding and cameras filming army training at a field location. Technological advances made it possible to move television crews to where the action was with cameras that were more portable. Note the mobile van parked nearby. See the Big Picture episode “Pictorial Report No. 23” (TV-342). (Image Source: In Focus, September 1959)

Figure 1.4. APC camera crew in the Peruvian Andes filming the episode “U.S. Army in the Andes” (TV-686). Another example of how evolving technologies made it possible for crews to move out of the studios to various locations around the globe to capture action footage for episodes. (Image Source: In Focus, December 1963)

Focusing initially on the three suggested goals: promoting anticommunism, connecting with the public, and gaining elite support, the Big Picture crew, under the auspices of the Public Information Office, began to develop a strategy. While it was simple enough to weave anticommunist rhetoric into the narrative of each show, the producers needed to maximize the potential of the television media to sell the army. Following that line, they began to develop scripts that told the army’s story. The very first of these, sporting the title “The Mission of the Army” (TV-182), described how the army fit into the national defense structure. It was followed in quick succession by “The Army Combat Team” (TV-183), then “The Citizen Soldier” (TV-184), “The Combat Soldier” (TV-185), and “Duty, Honor, Country” (TV-186) a presentation about the United States Military Academy at West Point. The APC designed each of these for general interest and scripted them as informational productions to educate the public about their soldiers—active duty, reservist, or officer in training—and build the essential military-civilian rapport that the army feared was missing.

As The Big Picture continued to develop its early television presence, it incorporated one project that was already in development: a collection of thirteen episodes that the production catalog listed as Series IV, the “Blue Badge Series.” Its creator and chief narrator was Colonel William Quinn, who at the time was serving as the chief of staff of the Pentagon. The short series focused on the lives of the army’s battle-tested foot soldier, who wore the distinctive Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB) with its unique blue background. As Quinn noted during the first episode, as he peered into the camera, “This series is a tribute to those of you who served as a rifleman.”⁹⁰ It was a nod to veterans in the viewing audience. Each episode focused on a different infantry division or unit, and Quinn provided details of their unit history and most recent combat actions, including short descriptions of the equipment and weapons they carried. The genesis of this thirteen-part series was Quinn’s own experiences as an infantry officer during World War II and Korea. Although it was not originally a part of the Big Picture series, producers managed to fold it in. Also, coupled to the start of each Blue Badge segment was the standard boilerplate introduction for The Big Picture, well-recognized by the viewing public. Although sometimes mistaken as the predecessor to the Big Picture series, the Blue Badge developed in parallel, and later the APC adopted it into the series. As this study will later show, Quinn would assume a key role in the development of information management for the army.

Inside this cycle of twinning of the two series, the Big Picture producers often returned to the subject of Korea. It is possible that this emerged from a feeling of an incomplete mission since the original thirteen episodes ended while peace negotiations were still ongoing and did not describe the eventual outcome of the Korean police action. Or it might have arisen from an understanding that the last opportunity the army had to prove that it was battle tested was the Korean conflict, and a program about that war might attract the interest of the public, including many recent veterans watching at home. Regardless of the reasoning, the APC produced a number of Big Picture episodes postbellum that focused on the events in that struggle. “A Day in Korea” (TV-196) was the first of these, and writers scripted it in a poignant manner to maintain a personal connection between the soldier and the American at home. It began with an introduction by Carl Zimmermann who announced that the show would revisit the war in Korea: “In terms of the solder on the front lines, the individual who fights the battles, who lives in a bunker and washes his socks in a steel helmet. He’s enduring a way of life remote from the daily living he once shared at home with you. Do you remember how you began this day?”⁹¹ The episode continued by telling the story of a soldier’s day via a first-person account. This was followed by “Civil Assistance, Korea” (TV-201), which spoke about humanitarian operations of relief and supply for the civilian populace; “Third Korean Winter” (TV-223), which described the harsh winter conditions of 1952–1953 endured by soldiers; and “Korean Wind-Up” (TV- 235), an effort to provide closure to the war through a visual narrative. Using a patriotic overtone, the narrator informed the viewers that “the guns are quiet again in Korea,” before going on to proudly proclaim: “The Armed Forces of the United States together with our Allies in the UN stopped the march of armed Communism cold in Korea. They did it against tremendous odds in manpower and in a land half way around the Earth from their own. This is a report from the now silent front.”⁹²

Perhaps the greatest appeal to a human connection in the Korean Big Picture series was in the episode “Christmas in Korea” (TV-244).⁹³ Crafted to tug at the heartstrings of viewers, it offered scenes of soldiers singing holiday carols and sharing gifts from home. Tucked between those images were a number of on-the-spot interviews with soldiers, noncommissioned officers, and the commanding general of the Seventh Infantry Division as they all shared a holiday meal. In concert with these types of episodes, the Big Picture APC producers aired periodic “Pictorial Reports” that addressed worldwide army operations, but during the 1950s always included short segments about Korea. Some of the subjects covered were mobile army surgical hospital operations, postarmistice aid to the Korean people, and celebration of the fifth anniversary of South Korea’s independence.⁹⁴ Finally, The Big Picture visited Korea with a retrospective titled “Korea Today” (TV-451), which reflected the rebuilding efforts in that postwar nation. It featured the army’s focused efforts to construct new housing and roads, piece together an infrastructure, train the South Korean Army, and bring normalcy to the lives of the people. Altogether, the US Army produced a total of twenty-four episodes covering Korea, including fourteen in 1952 alone and five in 1953.

Each of these episodes on Korea, including the original thirteen, relied to some degree on camera and sound techniques and the cinematographic skills of the APC studios to enhance the effectiveness of their messages. Central to the first series (TV-169 to TV-181) were the reels of combat camera footage that provided a visual frame for the scripted narrative. Overlaying these battle images were sound tracks of brooding, ominous music broken by the staccato sounds of machine-gun fire and thunderous artillery. Producers edited scenes of Korean refugees lining the muddy roads into the combat reels to create the gray feelings of despair and hopelessness of war. The message seemed clear: America was in a desperate fight to save the West and its ideals against communism wherever that fight might take it. These images that described the high stakes in the Cold War would appear sharpened and defined in greater detail as the series continued to press that theme of the East-West struggle. By the second and subsequent series the Big Picture included episodes on Korea that incorporated many of the same cinematographic techniques, but the messaging strategy was more refined. Scripted narratives provided explicit messages, and film craft offered more nuanced, implicit messages. As the narrator spoke of defending against communist aggression, video footage showed images of fleeing families laden with all their possessions, American GIs feeding and caring for small children, and the unloading of shipments of rice to nourish the people. Cameras showed the Koreans as a defeated, paupered people, picking through the ruins of their cities, voiceless on film, hollow-eyed and struggling to survive. The faces of hungry children pressed in toward the camera, breaking into smiles when an American would show them a kindness. The message communicated spoke of the superiority of the United States and the West, come to rescue the blighted and submissive Koreans, just as it had come to Asia a decade earlier in another war to save another people. These techniques and cinematographic themes appeared with regularity as a thread through the Korean episodes and later, in a similar way, in those about other nations such as Germany and Vietnam. It was an effort to sell the nation, and in particular, the US Army.

Hollywood and the APC

It was with a measure of satisfaction, and some relief, that New York City’s Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia stood at the site of the new Signal Corps Photographic Center (SCPC) on 22 September 1942 and announced to the assembled press and VIPs, “I’ve been trying to get moving pictures back in this shack for a long time.”⁹⁵ The large studio complex was at the time nicknamed “The Big House.”⁹⁶ La Guardia’s dedication followed the movement of the Army Signal Corps’ Training Film Production Laboratory from its previous location at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, to its new home on Long Island, New York, after a short but focused search that began in January 1942. At that time, just a month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the War Department made the decision to invest resources in the production of training and informational films to support the war effort. Surveying possible sites on the East Coast, it eventually identified two possibilities, the Warner Brothers’ Flatbush Brooklyn Studio or Paramount’s Eastern Services Studios at Astoria, in Queens, Long Island. Both film studios had suffered during the hard economic times of the Depression years, but it was the Paramount facility that stood completely dormant. This, plus the greater availability of necessary floor space, influenced the War Department’s decision to offer Paramount $500,000 for its 5.14-acre workspace at Thirty-Fifth Avenue and Thirty-Fifth Street in Astoria.⁹⁷ Although Paramount was at first hesitant, because of a fear that concentrating all its production capacity on the West Coast might make it susceptible to a Japanese attack, in the end it relented and agreed to the sale.

Figure 1.5. An aerial view of the APC complex at Astoria. Over time it grew to encompass several buildings that surrounded the main studio in the center. These housed facilities for film development and editing and storage of equipment, scenery, and wardrobes, as well as a barracks for the soldiers. (Image Source: NARA photo 111-SC-367347)

Figure 1.6. Scene of a typical training film production at the APC during World War Two. By the early 1950s the center used the same soundstages, and a mixture of civilian and military production crews and actors, to create the Big Picture series. (Image Source: NARA photo 111-SC-148806)

Initially, because of concerns for wartime security, the government held information about the move from New Jersey close. As the New York Times reported, “The Signal Corps has requested that the name of the studio and its location be treated as a military secret.”⁹⁸ But by the time that article had gone to press Variety had already trumped the Times by running an article several weeks earlier that shouted “Army Taking Over Astoria Plant as Lab.”⁹⁹ The sudden influx of military personnel, vehicles, and equipment to the quiet neighborhood erased any lingering doubts. Ultimately, espionage did strike the APC, when Nazi operative Simon Emil Koedel was able to infiltrate the facility during the war. Investigators suspected he made off with numerous copies of films showing training and the latest weapons.¹⁰⁰ The complex, which encompassed a “full city block,” included sound studios, laboratories for film development processes, a carpentry shop, maintenance and repair shops, and administrative offices, plus a barracks to house enlisted soldiers.¹⁰¹ The center would remain at that location until 1970, when the army disbanded it. Many of the personnel would move on to Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, where they would continue to work on the series as members of the US Army Motion Picture/Television Production Division, a government-owned, contractor operated facility, until its end in June 1971. All subsequent military audiovisual activities were then concentrated at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, California.

Figure 1.7. The US Army’s Building 4489, Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Alabama, housed the last studio and laboratory that served in production of The Big Picture. (Image Source: US Army)

By the time the initial facility was set up and functional in 1942, it had become the workplace for approximately 250 soldiers and 35 officers.¹⁰² That number eventually swelled to a combined 3,000.¹⁰³ During the course of the war it would also become a magnet for “many draftees from the motion picture industry” who found themselves reassigned there for the convenience of the government, especially to take advantage of their various production skills.¹⁰⁴ As former production crew member Lester Binger recalls, “Fancy Hollywood people got themselves into the Signal Corps. All of a sudden, you had people arriving in limousines for the morning reveille.”¹⁰⁵ Most of the soldiers assigned to the SCPC would remain for the duration of the war, then afterward return to their civilian lives and careers. Over the ensuing years hundreds of military personnel, officers, noncommissioned officers, and enlisted soldiers rotated through the facilities, performing various functions as photographers, working in the labs or on the cameras and sound equipment, writing scripts, directing productions, constructing props and scenery, or providing makeup and wardrobe services. In addition, those who were in uniform were subject to the sometimes mundane demands of army life that included guard duty, in-ranks uniform inspections, kitchen police (KP), physical training, and small arms weapons qualification. On the lighter side, Arthur Laurents, a former writer at the APC, recalls that on one occasion the entire military unit was “ticketed by the police for obstructing traffic” while conducting marching drills in the street outside the facility.¹⁰⁶ The studio subsequently relocated the activities to a nearby National Guard training site.

Among those who served at the APC during World War II were a number of Hollywood notables who brought their skills to the studios. One example was famed director John Huston, whom the army had posted there during the war. Wearing the rank of captain, he produced and directed three films for the Army Signal Corps: Report from the Aleutians (1943), The Battle of San Pietro (1945), and Let There Be Light (1946). Unfortunately, censors delayed the release of the last two films because of concerns for public sensitivities to scenes of combat deaths and the potential of psychological damage to veterans. Those concerns aside, the New York Times recognized The Battle of San Pietro as “one of the greatest American documentaries ever made.”¹⁰⁷ Nevertheless, before his discharge, Huston attained the rank of major and received the Legion of Merit for his work under combat conditions during the filming of scenes for that production.¹⁰⁸ A truncated version of this story, which does include footage extracted from Huston’s documentary, did appear later as the Big Picture episode “US Sixth Corps” (TV-219). Another contributor to military film production was director Frank Capra, who as a colonel created and directed the wartime propaganda series Why We Fight. Although Capra rarely worked at the APC, his staff did, and he remained in charge of film production there in support of his series. A third noted director, who was familiar with the Astoria studios, where he worked for Paramount prior to the war, was George Cukor. He also directed information and training films at the Astoria location and after his discharge went on to receive acclaim for his other work.¹⁰⁹ Still, there were other individuals who grew into their reputations after the war but passed through the APC and shared their talents while on duty in Astoria. This was the case for William Franklin Beedle Jr. who as a US Army Air Corps captain acted in several APC wartime productions. He would later gain stardom as the famed actor William Holden. Another figure was Arthur Laurents, who wrote scripts for training and informational films. He would go on to become an award-winning playwright, stage director, and screenwriter. Laurents later received credit for such productions as West Side Story and Gypsy.

Generally, interactions between those soldiers who were members of the regular army and those who came into the service directly from Hollywood went smoothly. However, the one noted wrinkle was in the area of promotions and rank. According to one soldier’s sardonic recollection, “Those from Hollywood got all the rank, New York guys got nothing,” and “If you were from Hollywood, whatever you told the Army, they believed it. There were guys running around with all kinds of rank, but they didn’t know anything.”¹¹⁰ Eventually, as the postwar years arrived, those individuals who had emigrated from Hollywood migrated back to the West Coast, and the mix of military and civilian workers began to change with the integration of an increasing number of nonuniformed personnel. By the late 1950s and mid-1960s it was not unusual to see familiar faces around the studio complex dressed in civilian attire who had previously worn military khaki.¹¹¹ Many of them returned to perform the same functions, others to assume new roles. But this collection of various talents that passed through the APC, whether by attraction or contingency, left in its wake a unique culture of creativity within the military and established a commitment of engagement with emerging technologies and audiovisual professionalism for years to come.

Part of the enduring legacy was the continuing association between the APC and Hollywood that lasted long after the coming of peace in 1945. This resonated in the Big Picture series that began production in Astoria in 1951 with the Bruton-Burkey-Zimmermann collaboration on the original thirteen episodes about the Korean War. From that time, a steady parade of familiar faces—actors, news announcers, and directors—lent their names and expertise to the Big Picture productions. Among the very first was the popular singer and comedian Al Jolson, who appeared visiting the American troops in Korea during “The United Nations Offensive” (TV-171), just the third episode of the Big Picture series. Another early presence of a personality was that of World War II hero, and actor, Audie Murphy, who first appeared as a guest narrator in “Third Division in Korea” (TV-302), an episode that told the story of the actions of his old unit in that conflict.¹¹² Murphy would again appear before the APC cameras together with his two young sons in the 1962 episode “Broken Bridge” (TV-508). Scripted to be a sales pitch for the modernizing army, it featured vignettes of several new missile weapons systems and included visits with NATO partners in Norway and Turkey. It aired at a crucial moment, as the army was in steep competition with its sister services to prove its relevancy, and technological edge, in the dangerous Cold War world. In this context, Murphy was once again in the service of the army, and his presence was an essential ingredient to the success of the episode. He was a recognized war hero and actor, his children were in the film, he carried a curiosity about the new weapons that most Americans shared, and he exhibited pride and patriotism toward the army’s latest accomplishments. In this one episode, the APC ensured all the key elements were in place to establish and maintain strong connections with the public and, with hope, Congress.

A diverse number of personalities contributed their names to the Big Picture series over the course of its production run, some for personal gain through popular exposure and some for patriotic sentiments. Regardless of their reasoning, their presence lent a certain gravity that attracted both military and civilian viewers and added credibility to the series and its messages. While one can only sense the motivation of personal gain, participation in The Big Picture as a patriotic pulpit became evident through their in-person narratives delivered before the lights and cameras of the APC. This was the case with “Challenge of Ideas” (TV-512), which aired in 1961. It offered a biased contrast of political philosophies between the democracy of the West and the communism of the East, elevating the first and casting the second in a dark light. The narrator, celebrated news correspondent, and at this time the new director of the USIA, Edward R. Murrow, introduced the episode by offering to review with the audience “the great conflict of our time,” and later, peering through a wreath of cigarette smoke with his signature stare, he added that the “Communist bloc would like to see the entire world under communist domination.”¹¹³ Other than Murrow, the episode featured appearances by John Wayne, Hanson Baldwin, Helen Hayes, Lowell Thomas, and Frank McGee. Each of these individuals was a well-known, popular film, stage, or television figure, particularly John Wayne and Edward R. Murrow.¹¹⁴ The contribution of their professional reputations to a Big Picture episode was evidence of their commitment to the contemporary patriotic, exceptionalist ideals of America but was also evidence of the deliberate, careful packaging of the messages transmitted via the Big Picture series during that time of Cold War geopolitical competition.

Figure 1.8. Image of John Wayne in the APC studios for filming of the episode “Challenge of Ideas” (TV-512). Wayne joined other notable performers from Hollywood, as well as contemporary news personalities, in this patriotic, exceptionalist view of the ideals of Americanism. (Image Source: Army Pictorial Center)

A number of other celebrities also participated in the symbiotic relationship between Hollywood and the APC. Some notable newsmen and actors, including Mike Wallace, Lorne Greene, Walter Matthau, Raymond Massey, and Ronald Reagan, lent their talents to a series of Big Picture biopic episodes of famous military leaders. Walter Matthau alone narrated at least four during the 1963 season, on Generals Pershing, Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton. Award winning newsman Walter Cronkite contributed his narrative talents to several episodes, two that were biopics about Generals Marshall and MacArthur, and two historical pieces on the Anzio beachhead and the Battle of the Bulge. Other personalities of stage and screen, such as comedians Bob Hope and Jerry Colonna, also brought their talents to The Big Picture. The 1963 episode “Shape of the Nation” (TV-582) provided a vehicle for their humorous quips as they reported on the physical shape of the nation in support of President John F. Kennedy’s program to improve the health and fitness of the United States. It featured visits to rugged outdoor army training and sporting events and encouraged widespread popular participation by focusing on the lethargy of the average American, a result of a too comfortable lifestyle. The episode concluded with a lengthy voice-over by President Kennedy, challenging all Americans to become involved in practicing a more active way of life. Much more than another simple petition for support of army programs or weapons systems, “Shape of the Nation” brought together Hollywood, the army, and the executive branch in a collaborative, informational presentation, another innovative use of the small screen to show how the army was an active participant in public service.

As the political atmosphere of the nation began to change with America’s increasing involvement in the Vietnam conflict, some Hollywood figures continued to contribute to the Big Picture series, although the number decreased dramatically. Among those who did continue were James Arness, Robert Mitchum, Bob Hope, and John Wayne. After 1965, Hope actually “doubled down on his patriotism and began to espouse an active support of the war effort.”¹¹⁵ Arness narrated “Hidden War in Vietnam” (TV-562) about Special Forces operations there. In a later appearance, Robert Mitchum appeared on film touring the battlefield in Vietnam with the troops of the 101st Airborne Division in the episode “Screaming Eagles in Vietnam” (TV-714), which aired in 1967. A year after this, Hope served as narrator for an episode titled “When the Chips are Down” (TV-723) about the National Guard. Sporting a beret and fatigue shirt, and characteristically swinging a golf club, he provided a review of the mission and responsibilities of the National Guard, including segments on the Army Guard participating in flood relief, providing protection during rioting in Detroit, and flying transport missions to and from Vietnam. One scene also included Phyllis Diller, a popular female comedian, who appeared in a cameo as a nurse. Although there is no supporting record of APC production board guidance, the production of this episode may suggest that its intended purpose was as a foil to deflect criticism of the army by providing some distance from the conflict in Vietnam by exhibiting activities that were not directly war related, such as flood relief. Still, for some entertainers such as Hope, it signaled an enduring connection with the military, while also offering another perspective of the contemporary army.

Figure 1.9. Popular actor Walter Matthau on the set of The Big Picture during filming of a historical episode. Matthau contributed his skills as a narrator for a number of biographical episodes of famous generals. (Image Source: In Focus, July 1963)

Known widely as a “living symbol of American patriotism,” John Wayne participated as host narrator for “A Nation Builds under Fire” (TV-695).¹¹⁶ In this episode, he drew comparisons of South Vietnam’s struggle for freedom and independence with that of the American colonies in the late 1700s. Standing before the camera, dressed in military battle fatigues, Wayne admitted that Saigon was the “capital city of a nation at war, the strangest war in which Americans have ever been involved.”¹¹⁷ He then added, “It is also the capital of a nation in the throes of a social revolution, and America’s participation in that revolution is just as urgent as its involvement in the war.”¹¹⁸ During his narrative delivery Wayne also disclosed that his presence in the episode was at the invitation of the Department of Defense. This served as a full disclosure that the military had enlisted the assistance of a Hollywood figure in preparing this video message to support its presence in Southeast Asia. Noteworthy also was the appearance of then vice president Hubert H. Humphrey, who presented the introduction to the episode and spoke of the nobility of the Vietnamese people and the urgency of aiding them in their quest for independence and liberty.¹¹⁹ He noted that “they are also proving their faith in us, because we have taken our stand beside them.”¹²⁰ Further endorsing America’s involvement, Humphrey added, “We are making possible the conditions under which they can build their nation.”¹²¹ Episodes such as this contributed to the ire that eventually emerged among some members of Congress, such as Senator J. William Fulbright and his progressive colleagues, whose protests against the perceived politicization of the Big Picture series became a matter of record. Still, the marriage of Hollywood and The Big Picture through the APC was long lasting, and to a degree, it remained mutually beneficial.

Putting the Pieces Together

The talent and craftsmanship brought to the APC through its association with Hollywood and the blossoming television industry helped establish the standard for production of the Big Picture series. Although the earliest episodes, such as the original thirteen or the Blue Badge series, appeared as hastily cobbled together efforts from available film footage, changes in film and television techniques and practices, as well as the evolution of video technology, had an impact on the development of APC productions, improving the level of professionalism and the quality of the product. This was important as the producers of the Big Picture series worked to keep pace with the industry to maintain the interest of their viewers and to ensure that the messages they were transmitting would be clear and acceptable. The trajectory of these changes is evident in the evolution of the quality of the Big Picture films from the first muted gray images to the colorful, orchestrated stories of later episodes.

Much of this developmental success of The Big Picture is attributable to the triumph of early television’s compilation documentaries. Award-winning series such as Crusade in Europe, and a few years later Crusade in the Pacific and Victory at Sea, encouraged emulation by APC producers, directors, and staff, whose work suggests they chose to mimic the successful formula of these shows. Although the goal was not always attainable, these documentaries offered inspiration for the creative teams inside the army’s Astoria studios. It was the particular “blending of music, poetic narration, and visual flow” of the documentaries that captivated audiences.¹²² So it was the “fusion of each element within a balanced and harmonious whole” that APC directors and writers understood was essential to breathing life into the video presentations.¹²³ This would evoke a response from and connection with the viewer. After the first few years of production the Big Picture episodes began to exhibit some of the key characteristics of the successful documentaries.

Foremost, and easiest of the key essentials, was the integration of actual combat footage. This added a dimension of realism that most viewers appreciated. It riveted attention and lent credibility to the narrative story. Producers of Victory at Sea admitted to sifting through approximately 60 million feet of film, derived mostly from the navy’s archives, finally using 60,000 feet.¹²⁴ Similarly, combat footage and films of in-progress training events or associated army activities were central to each Big Picture episode, from the fighting in Korea to historical biopics and operations north of the Arctic Circle. With the arrival of the portable television camera the series producers were further able to embrace the emerging technologies that were available and complement dated combat films by capturing current events as they unfolded. As Lieutenant Colonel William Ellington, chief of the Radio-Television Office, commented during the filming of “Hidden War in Vietnam” in 1962, “shooting these films on location can be hazardous and, sometimes fatal,” but he added with a measure of pride, “The Big Picture goes to the world’s trouble spots to film the Army in action.”¹²⁵ This added an immediacy, and relevancy, to the Big Picture episodes that was missing early in the series when archived footage was the only recourse. Substitution of newer, relevant footage also satisfied an existing criticism of the sometimes awkward insertion of an archived video sequence, which historian Lawrence H. Suid notes was a distraction in earlier documentaries such as Victory at Sea. During those moments, Suid writes, “rather than becoming absorbed in the action, some viewers undoubtedly spent their time recalling where they had previously seen the sequence.”¹²⁶ Over time, the use of newer camera technologies lessened the frequency of this occurrence for The Big Picture.

But as much as this type of film added to the composition of any episode, at times the APC needed actors to supplement existing stock film. In these cases the studios at Astoria, or on-site locations, came alive with full crews of actors, writers, directors, and sound personnel working to create a scene. One example was “Military Police Town Patrol” (TV-325), which featured a combination of actors and soldiers staging the activities of military police patrols on city streets. Another was “Military Justice” (TV-331), which offered vignettes of the military justice system. A related example appears in the episode “Hidden War in Vietnam” (TV-562), which included in its opening sequence a notice that “portions of this film have been recreated to portray typical events in Vietnam.”¹²⁷ It involved soldiers staging mock tactical operations in a jungle environment. Although the integration of actors and staged sequences did fill gaps where archived footage did not exist, it is evident that it was infrequently used, and The Big Picture relied less on the docudrama format, as was the case in the Navy Log series, and more on films with a higher impact that recorded events as they were unfolding. This was consistent with some concerns such as those earlier voiced by President Eisenhower, who felt dramatizing a military documentary would create a theatrical production, which lacked a necessary authenticity.

Integration of musical scores was also important to the Big Picture series. In the early 1950s, the soundtrack for the Peabody Award–winning Victory at Sea enthralled television viewing audiences. The background music, which followed the events of each scene, rising and falling with the action, was an essential element that contributed to the success of that production. As A. William Bluem noted in his study of documentaries, together with the right words and film, the music “could reflect the predetermined point of view throughout” the episode and the entire series, and so set the mood.¹²⁸ This understanding set the standard for compilation series that followed, including The Big Picture. Throughout its production its episodes incorporated sound tracks that followed and reflected the on-screen activities, often offering typical orchestral background music. As Bluem observes regarding television theme documentaries, the “suggestive power of the musical score” shaped the presentation of the content.¹²⁹ But also with the passage of time, the soundtracks for the Big Picture episodes did reflect some popular trends. Dramatic orchestrations, and a military drum and bugle prelude that became iconic, accompanied introductions to the earliest episodes. Later, by the mid-1960s, a contemporary jazz bass and drum had replaced the previous set. Over time as audio technologies improved, so did the quality of the sound. As the equipment became available, the APC Sound Branch converted from optical film to magnetic tape. This accommodated live sound recordings from the field locations that were “adding the realism” to video footage.¹³⁰ It also permitted the creation of music and effects tracks that accommodated the recording of music and sound independently of narration or dialogue, and allowed the revision of voice tracks as needed. Still, throughout the twenty-year course of the series, music remained an integral piece of The Big Picture’s successful documentary-like formula.

Closely linked to the audio improvements were video advancements. One of the most noticeable transitions that followed the trajectory of technological change was the introduction of color. By 1966 the APC switched away from 35 mm and began relying on 16 mm color negative for field production of Big Picture episodes.¹³¹ This coincided with the increase in sales of color television sets in the United States. This was a cause for celebration by network sponsors, who foresaw the benefit in product sales through color commercials. The networks also realized a potential advantage in the annual ratings wars that followed in the wake of the growing television fad in America. Shows produced in color attracted wider audiences. By one estimate 9.5 million households owned a color television set in 1965, and by 1969 that number had risen to 19.2 million.¹³² Keeping pace with the popular trend was important to APC producers, who were determined to remain at the cutting edge of technology and prevent their programs from lagging too far behind contemporary commercial programming. The advantage to The Big Picture was apparent in the visual impact that episodes carried. Stories such as “Science Moves the Army” (TV-668), which featured advancements in mobility and weapons systems, appeared more aesthetically pleasing to viewers and possessed more energy compared to the mundane newsreel appearance of dated black-and-white footage. By the time producers were airing Big Picture episodes about Vietnam, color television ownership in the United States was widespread. So to keep pace with prime-time network news shows and documentary series, color became the norm at the APC. This remained the case through the final episodes in 1971.

One documentary trend The Big Picture did not generally follow was the epic multiepisode concept that wove together a lengthy narrative over an extended period.¹³³ Instead, the series maintained a format of unique short feature films no longer than twenty-eight minutes. This provided creative flexibility while maintaining audience interest. Although The Big Picture did carry a few story lines through for several episodes, such as the ten-part series “Army in Action” (TV-634 through TV-643), they tended to remain with the single-episode format. This worked well for the Big Picture producers because as Bluem notes, by the 1958 season after the succession of triumphant compilation documentaries, Victory at Sea, Crusade in the Pacific, and Air Power, American television audiences were quite sated, having “already seen many impressive demonstrations” of the method.¹³⁴ To remedy this situation, Bluem posits, newer shows such as The Twentieth Century, as well as The Big Picture, began focusing on the “back of the book,” those events that in many cases told a smaller, yet still significant, story.¹³⁵ That solution worked, and these shorter features were able to maintain viewer attention by keeping interest piqued with new offerings each week. This was the model already employed by the Big Picture writers and directors, who hewed closely to the concept of short interest pieces that changed week by week. It worked to “promote regular, habituated viewing,” which also encouraged “robust sales in the syndication markets (where producers make most of their money).”¹³⁶ This avoided the potentially dulling repetitiveness of a lengthy twenty-six episode series. The one unifying theme for The Big Picture was telling the army’s story, but through a variety of perspectives and approaches. That combination of the documentary-style blending of storytelling with music and video, together with the episodic format, contributed to the series’ longevity. The APC gambled that it could maintain audience interest and deliver the Big Picture message in a manner that was both informational and palatable.

Just as the audio and visual dimensions of the The Big Picture had changed over time, so too did the opening sequences. This reflected the changing political and cultural times as much as the changing artistic format of the program. The introductory sequence for the original thirteen episodes featured video footage of artillery explosions, fleeing refugees, dusty marching troops, and armored columns. Carl Zimmermann, the narrator, introduced each of those initial episodes as a view of an army committed to “stop communist aggression wherever it may strike.”¹³⁷ This set the purpose of the series in terms framed by an early Cold War geopolitical struggle that set East against West in the arena of the Korean War. But even before the end of the first year, the tone of the show’s introduction began to change. The black-and-white newsreel-style images of the battlefield were gone, replaced by video segments of the army training in the various reaches of the globe. The introductory narrative no longer fixed on a communist threat, but instead in a broader sense proclaimed, “From Korea to Germany, from Alaska to Puerto Rico, all over the world, the men and women of your army are on the alert to defend our nation, you the American people, against aggression. This is The Big Picture.”¹³⁸ The initiation of truce talks between the United Nations forces and those of North Korea, which began in July of 1951 and carried through to the armistice, suggests that a toning down of any rhetoric perceived to be provocative was in order, although there is no recorded evidence of a discussion of this among producers. Even with the airing of “Atrocities in Korea” (TV-242) in 1953, which focused on the mass executions of South Korean civilians by the North, the tone of the introduction remained moderated. This also suggests deference for the “Terms of Reference” discussions regulating prisoner-of war-repatriation between the belligerents that began that year with the signing of the armistice agreement on 27 July 1953.¹³⁹

By 1955, the producers had again altered the show’s introduction and logo. Capturing the current mood of the military, it announced, “Today the latest weapons, coupled with the fighting skill of the American soldier, stand ready, on the alert all over the world to defend this country, you the American people, against aggression. This is The Big Picture.”¹⁴⁰ This was that desperate time when the army found itself in sharp competition with its sister services to prove both that it deserved its place along the bulwarks in the defense of Western freedoms and that it was not lacking in technological know-how. All this was against a backdrop of shrinking resources. In conjunction with the updated narrative, the introductory video included segments showing an army television camera recording the launch of a tactical missile, the detonation of an Honest John atomic artillery round, and an airmobile assault.¹⁴¹ It was during this period that The Big Picture was airing episodes of army adventures north of the Arctic Circle, such as “Exercise Arctic Night” (TV-337) and “Operation Lead Dog” (TV-494), and its place on the modern frontline in the “Atomic Battlefield” (TV-396), all to justify its relevancy.

With the approach of the end of the decade the opening would again pass through several modifications, reflecting the producer’s efforts to keep pace with contemporary television shows and to engage viewer interest. These included the frequent deletion of any introductory narrative and any standard video lead-in as the 1960s progressed. Instead, episodes would often open with thirty seconds of video relevant to the theme of the upcoming show. The 1962 episode “Special Forces” (TV-547) for example, began with special operations forces engaged in a tactical training exercise. Many other episodes followed suit, continuing into the late 1960s and early 1970s. The 1971 episode “There Is a Way” (TV-806) about the US Military Academy Preparatory School followed this format by opening directly into a scene of cadets marching on the grassy plain of West Point. Missing from The Big Picture was the staid, often overstated mission statement of the army. Following that trend, somber, direct references to any Cold War narrative also disappeared from each episode’s prolog, replaced instead by filmed action sequences or a simple rotating globe circled by a beeping satellite. Eventually, even the recognizable three-dimensional rotating globe found replacement in a series of artist’s cartoonish renderings of tanks, missiles, and soldiers in training, accompanied by a colorful two-dimensional image of the iconic Big Picture globe. It was an aesthetic change that offered a contemporary feel to attract viewers. With these cosmetic changes, it seems as if the series producers were reflecting a desperate gamble by the army to reinvent itself as something different, in a modern, upbeat, and popular sense, and not mired in dated, and often controversial, geopolitical struggles. With the end of conscription just around the corner in January 1973, the need to sell itself in a more attractive light to bolster future recruitment would have made sense.¹⁴²

Other changes to the introductions involved the individual narrators and opening credits. The first narrator and cocreator, Captain Carl Zimmermann, opened each episode of the original thirteen and served as the face of The Big Picture through two dozen more, until the APC found a replacement. His departure from the show coincided with his return to a successful civilian life after a three-year call-up to serve during the Korean conflict. Unfortunately, he never had a chance to enjoy presenting the final episodes about the Korean campaign, which concluded with “Korean Wind-Up” (TV-235). A different combat veteran who had served in the Signal Corps, Master Sergeant James Mansfield, replaced Zimmermann. His tenure began with the “Big Red One” (TV-210), which was coincidentally the first episode of Colonel Quinn’s Blue Badge series. Mansfield remained for only a short while, until “Soldier in Berlin” (TV-232) aired in 1953. Master Sergeant Stuart Queen, another combat veteran, was his replacement. Queen remained the face of The Big Picture for the longest period, until the mid-1960s, when APC producers modified the introductory sequences to eliminate the need for any on-screen narrator.

Figure 1.10. An image of the original Big Picture opening logo as it appeared in the earliest shows in the 1950s. Simple, in black and white, to reflect the sobriety of the programming, it would change over the ensuing years to reflect technological advancement as well the army’s efforts to maintain audience appeal.

Concurrent with the elimination of a narrator, the army studio also modified the opening of each episode. They accomplished this by bringing the credits forward from the conclusion. Instead of stating that the film was either “Produced by the Signal Corps” or “Produced by the Army Pictorial Center” and was “Presented by the United States Army,” the official imprimatur simply claimed that it was “Produced for the Office of the Chief of Information by the Army Pictorial Center.”¹⁴³ This change might suggest it was a move to relocate the responsibility for the production of The Big Picture away from an individual branch or activity to a single coordinating office for the dissemination of all information in the army. This would assign greater agency to the series as an official organ of the OCINFO, but it also suggests greater centralization of management and control over its production. However, there is no archived documentation indicating that the OCINFO issued any guidance in this regard. It was during this time also that the Big Picture series producers began introducing an increasing number of episodes that addressed military activities in Vietnam. That was central to the criticism from some members of Congress, such as Senator William Fulbright, who voiced concerns of impropriety and charged that the CINFO was intentionally shaping the messages of these episodes to influence national foreign policy. Nevertheless, those format revisions would remain until the last episode in 1971.

Figure 1.11. By the late 1950s a modified version of the original show logo included an orbiting satellite, a reference to the army’s commitment to technological advancement.

Prime Time to Syndication

From its debut in December 1951 through the 1953 season, The Big Picture aired in the Washington, DC, area on the CBS television affiliate, Washington Post–owned WTOP. Just prior to the final fade-out for each of the early episodes, the last frame announced, “This program was originally produced for the Military District of Washington by Lieutenant Carl Bruton.” After this original thirteen-week stint the show reappeared on ABC, filling prime-time slots until 1956. During the 1953–1954 season it appeared on Monday evenings at 9:30 p.m. opposite the popular Red Buttons Show, which maintained a ranking in the top twenty. The next season, 1954–1955, ABC moved it to Sunday at 8:30 p.m., but the competition for viewer percentage was stiffer against Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town variety show, which ranked in the top ten. Finally, during its last year with ABC, 1955–1956, the network moved The Big Picture back to Mondays at 10:00 p.m. There, the series faced little competition, but the later night hour did not promise a wide audience. During these three seasons, a typical American family watching at home would have witnessed, among others, a plethora of Big Picture episodes detailing events on the Korean peninsula, including the “Korean Wind-Up” (TV-235); the army’s early efforts to remain on the cutting edge of emerging technology, “Tools for a Modern Army” (TV-208); and its efforts to build its reputation north of the Arctic Circle in “Operation Blue Jay” (TV-227) and “Ice Cap” (TV-273). If the show had remained on the prime-time television carousel, through the late 1950s and into the 1960s, audiences would have seen the army’s continuing efforts to sell itself as a relevant, modern force through its experimentation with guided missiles and satellites, or its further exploration along the polar ice cap. But this was not to be. Decision-makers within the Office of the Chief of Information and the APC seemed determined to break the army’s relationship with the major television networks. This seems to have been predicated on three factors. The first was a dislike for the idea of associating the show with a prime-time sponsor who might possibly attempt to leverage control of episode content. In this context, the army chief of information made it clear that “the Army must maintain strict creative control” of its programs, with a complete understanding that if it maintained a strict oversight it “could inhibit the Army’s ability to have a presence on prime-time television.”¹⁴⁴ The second concern was apprehension that networks might drop The Big Picture or relegate it to a disadvantageous time slot if ratings lagged. Finally, there was APC producers’ belief that switching to a distribution model that reached more viewers was possible through off-network broadcast syndication. This would make it possible to ship episodes of the show to as many television stations within as many markets as possible. That concept gained support from senior military leaders such as the commanding general of the US Sixth Army. In a March 1959 letter to the CINFO he encouraged taking steps to distribute The Big Picture more widely through his area, in the American southwest. The show, he noted, was “a valuable tool for winning public support for the Army” while “holding the line against increasing competition from other Government agencies for public-service air time.”¹⁴⁵ These positions—avoiding external leverage, managing time slots, and reaching a wider audience—helped frame a new distribution model.

Distribution

Prior to July 1959, the Office of the R-T Section of the PID was the central authority for distribution of the Big Picture series. This made dissemination of episodes cumbersome by creating a bureaucratic bottleneck at the national level. When responsibility for production of the show passed from the PID to the TID in that year, the distribution system changed. The chief of the TID, Col. John O. Weaver, pushed the responsibility out to the Central Film and Equipment Exchange Office within each of the six army headquarters in the United States. This located a distribution authority within six geographical regions instead of one overarching agency. With this change, accessibility to area television stations increased. The result streamlined the distribution of The Big Picture, which then occurred through coordination between television stations and the command information officer (IO) within the Audio-Visual Support Center (AVSC) at each army installation. The IO prepared and scheduled the appearance of each film. The AVSC would then package and deliver the film to the television station according to the agreed schedule. The IO was responsible for coordinating a rotation of Big Picture episodes among the stations in their area to ensure adequate distribution. Groups or individuals could also request specific episodes in parallel to this procedure to satisfy their additional needs. To obtain episodes of The Big Picture, civilian requestors first reviewed the Department of the Army’s Pamphlet 108-1, Index of Army Motion Pictures and Related Audio-Visual Aids, which contained a listing and description of available Big Picture episodes.¹⁴⁶ After deciding on a particular title, the organization or television station then had to follow the guidelines outlined in Department of the Army Field Manual (FM) 11-41, Audio-Visual Support Center Operations.¹⁴⁷ The instructions were straightforward and required that contact be made with the IO or Audio-Visual Support Center (AVSO) on the nearest military installation. Depending on the need, the IO would either approve or disapprove the request. There were some episodes that the army did not consider appropriate for release to the public; these generally involved informational or training films about new weapons systems.

By taking advantage of the new distribution model, regional army headquarters were in closer contact with local television stations. A 1959 memo from the chief of information for the Fifth Army to the army CINFO notes that fifty new regional stations requested the Big Picture series, with regular scheduling planned for each day of the week including prime time.¹⁴⁸ In this particular case, the coverage included viewers in a swath of eleven states in the north central region of the United States. The bounds were from the greater metropolitan area of Chicago in the east to Colorado in the west, and from North Dakota south to Missouri and the St. Louis area.¹⁴⁹ This increased distribution of the show continued through to the 1968–1969 season, when it aired on 313 commercial and 53 educational television stations nationwide.¹⁵⁰ The army offered episodes free to stations, but supplied them only on request, and stations generally showed them as part of their public service time. Catalogs of the episodes were available also on request, and promotional materials were available at broadcasters’ conventions.

Figure 1.12. Cover of the Big Picture catalog listing the title and description of each episode in the first nine series of the show (1951–1956). The army made this publication available to stations, the media, and any organization inquiring about the films. (Image Source: Rich Zimmermann)

In contrast to the prime-time slots offered by the major networks, The Big Picture began appearing at less traditional times that offered the possibility of access to a wider demographic cross-section across multiple geographic markets. For example, it aired on WPIX-TV in New York City at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday; WATR-TV in Waterbury, Connecticut, at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday; WLWC-TV in Columbus, Ohio, at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday; and KLXA-TV in Hollywood, California, at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday. In addition, viewers could find the show in US possessions on channels such as WSVI-TV in the US Virgin Islands at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday.¹⁵¹

An additional survey of distribution and viewership reveals that The Big Picture increasingly appeared in intermediate-sized standard metropolitan statistical area (SMSA), such as Richmond, Virginia. Between January 1959 and May 1971, the series appeared regularly on one of three major network affiliates in Richmond (ABC, CBS, and NBC) and WCVE-TV, an independent educational channel.¹⁵² For example, from 11 January 1969 to 28 December 1969 The Big Picture aired consistently on Saturdays and Sundays, at 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. respectively, alternating between WXEX-TV (ABC) and WTVR-TV (CBS), for at least two viewings weekly. During this time it also appeared periodically on WCVE-TV 23. This pattern spanned twelve years and occasionally included WRVA-TV, the NBC affiliate. After 1959, the series had moved to syndication, and those Richmond stations that procured copies of its films adjusted the time slots as necessary to fit their needs. Thus, prior to 1969, The Big Picture also occasionally filled 2:00 p.m. time slots on Saturdays and 1:00 p.m. slots on Sundays. The stations broadcast the show to a Richmond SMSA covering an area that included 436,044 potential viewers in 1960, which grew to 518,319 by 1970.¹⁵³ The size of the population together with the frequency of appearance of The Big Picture suggests that the show enjoyed wide exposure in this geographical region. There is the suggestion that The Big Picture also enjoyed comparable viewership in similar intermediate-sized SMSAs. Another such area was Des Moines, Iowa, within the Fifth Army area mentioned earlier in this chapter. With a population size that was just under that of Richmond, it also had the potential to reach an increased number of viewers.¹⁵⁴ Coincidentally, that region includes the town of Ottumwa, the subject of a Big Picture episode titled “Ottumwa, U.S.A.” (TV-387). An example of one week’s airing of The Big Picture in the Des Moines area in January 1967 appears in Table 1.2.

City	Time	Channel	Call Sign
Sunday, 8 Jan 1967
Des Moines	10:00 a.m.	8	WHO-TV
Rochester	11:30 a.m.	10	KROC-TV
Cedar Rapids	2:00 p.m.	9	KCRG-TV
Monday, 9 Jan 1967
Des Moines	8:00 p.m.	11	KDPS-TV
Friday, 13 Jan 1967
Mason City	3:30 p.m.	3	KGLO-TV
Saturday, 14 Jan 1967
Rock Island	2:00 p.m.	8	WQAD-TV
Omaha	3:30 p.m.	3	3KMTV-TV
Fort Dodge	5:00 p.m.	21	KVFD-TV

Table 1.2. From 8 January through 14 January 1967, the Big Picture series aired across the greater Des Moines, Iowa, metropolitan statistical area. It appeared in eight time slots on various days and times across the region, on eight separate television channels. Outside of Des Moines viewers could also see the show in locations as far away as Cedar Rapids and Omaha. Source: “TV Magazine,” Des Moines Iowa Register, 8 January 1967, TV-4, TV-6, TV-10, TV-11.

Although the move from prime time to syndication did remove any leverage major broadcasting networks or sponsors may have had on the series and its messaging, further analysis reveals that the move did come with certain costs. The new distribution model was effective in sending the series into a broader base of outlets, through more independent stations and intermediate-sized markets, but in doing this the army sacrificed the advantage of prime-time viewership in larger, more densely populated markets, such as New York. Also, most independent stations slotted The Big Picture where they needed a filler: early morning, afternoon doldrums, or late night. As such, it sometimes aired in less frequented weekend time slots, or on less popular television channels. As the “TV-Films Reviews” columnist of Billboard acknowledged, “The Army distributes the show free, and practically every station in the country carries it, tho [sic] not always in the best time slot.”¹⁵⁵ Still, the move to syndication did eliminate unwanted external influence and promised a measure of longevity, since major networks may have eventually dropped the program if ratings were lagging.

Understanding the show’s impact through the lens of distribution, however, offers other insights. For example, it suggests that Senator Fulbright’s 1969 congressional diatribe against army propaganda lacked authority when he singled out The Big Picture as a leading culprit. By the late 1960s, the television series had been navigating the vagaries of syndication scheduling. Although Fulbright argued against the show’s messages, its distribution in secondary and smaller markets would have reduced its impact as a vehicle of unwanted propaganda. Even as the army continued to celebrate increased distribution of the Big Picture series, throughout the span of its production, it lacked a presence in larger SMSAs and prime-time markets. As a result, claims by critics that it possessed great influence in shaping audience opinions are difficult to credential. A dearth of supporting data in records or archives of polls, ratings, or audience numbers contributes to undermining claims made by Big Picture critics.

The few available ratings of The Big Picture that do exist are those provided by Ziv-TV and the American Research Bureau (ARB) in the Billboard newsletter for the years 1952 through 1955.¹⁵⁶ On 14 June 1952, the Ziv annual ratings listed The Big Picture as #8 out of the top ten Non-Network TV Shows. In that same issue the Public Service Division of Billboard’s first quarterly station survey of TV-films listed The Big Picture as #1 out of twenty-six public service films “as mentioned by stations.”¹⁵⁷ The series had garnered 196 points in station votes, besting the second-ranked show, Industry on Parade, by over one hundred points.¹⁵⁸ By that September, the Big Picture only gained honorable mention in the next quarterly rating survey for Non-Network TV shows falling out of the top ten behind #8-ranked Crusade in the Pacific, and #10 ranked Crusade in Europe.¹⁵⁹ In February 1953, in the Billboard First Annual TV-Film Show Awards the Big Picture rated #5, behind #1 Victory at Sea, #2 Crusade in Europe, and #4 Crusade in the Pacific.¹⁶⁰ The last rating that included the Big Picture appeared in the 31 July 1954 issue of Billboard. At that time, the Second Annual TV-Film Awards listed The Big Picture as #9 of ten. Here, it at last bested Crusade in the Pacific at #10, but fell far behind in points awarded (1657 to 5) to the very successful Victory at Sea ranked at #1.¹⁶¹ Several media reviews substantiate the success of The Big Picture in the early years of production. One reviewer noted that the series “is far better than many of its friendly competitors . . . because it tells a public service story in an interesting manner, without the flag-waving monotony so often associated with films of this type.”¹⁶² He concluded with the comment, “This is one public service show that certainly encourages the viewer to tune in, week after week.”¹⁶³ Variety magazine concurred, noting the show had “a realistic quality that lifts it above the routine documentary.”¹⁶⁴ These were heady words, considering the competition included Victory at Sea.

The Billboard ARB ratings for The Big Picture during the same window of time, are less reliable and show great variance. For example, on 4 October 1952 the ARB rated the series at 6.0 points on WBZ-TV (Boston), and on 25 October at 4.3 points on KLAC (Los Angeles).¹⁶⁵ By 14 March 1953 it was at 0.6 points on WTTG (Washington, DC) and a month later, on 18 April 1953, it was at 2.1 points on the same station. ARB ratings for the show in 1954 do not appear in Billboard. But by 26 March 1955 The Big Picture secured a rating of 2.0 on KGO (San Francisco), and on 30 July 1955 a 13.2 on KEDD (Wichita). These were the last ARB ratings for the show in Billboard. Altogether, these sparse ratings provide little basis for an accurate or consistent evaluation of the series during the first few years of The Big Picture’s production. Nevertheless, the evidence of actions suggests the army producers took a risk, choosing a secondary-tier distribution plan to ensure the possibility of longevity, maintaining production control, and reaching a wider demographic, over the prospect of shorter term, prime-time viewership in larger markets. These considerations all suggest that regardless of how the military celebrated the move to syndication, or how critics evaluate the show’s impact, the efficacy of the new distribution model remains difficult to judge. The Big Picture did, however, outlast its television competition.

Substantial evidence discloses certain enticements that the army offered to the secondary markets for airing The Big Picture. Other than letters of thanks to station managers and producers from the OCINFO, that office also forwarded plaques of appreciation to the stations. Among several of the archived communications is an October 1958 memo directing the purchase of 400 plaques from the OCINFO chief, Liaison Division, to the commander of the Army Exhibit Unit. These would serve as awards to certain stations for regularly broadcasting Big Picture episodes and would be “an excellent publicity gimmick for the Army.”¹⁶⁶ Similarly, a December 1958 communication from the deputy chief, Troop Information Division, to the chief of the Army Exhibit Unit contained a request for the acquisition of an additional 350 award plaques. As the note instructs, affixed to each plaque would be a metal plate embossed with the words, “To the Management and Staff of Station ___ for outstanding public service in programming the Department of the Army weekly TV series—The Big Picture—and for continued interest and cooperation during the ____ season.”¹⁶⁷ The same memo requested the production of two large panels to use as advertisements about The Big Picture at the 1959 National Association of Broadcasters’ Convention in Chicago. It also ordered the distribution of ten of the plaques to each of the six army military regions in the United States prior to the convention. This was to generate interest prior to the gathering. Another such memo dated 18 March 1959, from the CINFO to the commander, US Army in Alaska, notes the recognition of several local television stations there and mentions the forwarding of plaques of appreciation to those station managers. For a number of years the army worked diligently to sell The Big Picture to stations across the nation, offering devices such as certificates and plaques as enticements.

Aside from the Big Picture series appearing on television in the United States, the Armed Forces Network Television (AFN-TV) channels overseas also regularly broadcast it. There, it was available to American service members, government civilians, and their families, wherever they could receive the broadcast signal. This included established military communities as well as many isolated locations. Over the years, as the AFN signal spread in Europe through the placement of additional signal towers, so did the television viewing audience. Beginning in West Germany, this grew to include Italy, France, Belgium, and England. Typical AFN-TV schedules, conveniently printed in the ubiquitous, popular Stars and Stripes newspaper, reveal that The Big Picture enjoyed prime viewing slots. For example, in 1963, AFN-TV channels also aired it on Saturdays at 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. This accommodated children after school and families during the dinner hour. By 1969, it remained on the two available channels with broadcasts at 6:01 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. Again, this was an accommodating time to capture the attention of entire families. An additional effect of the wide array of signal towers broadcasting AFN-TV signals was the collateral sharing of programming with local civilians, who could intercept the transmissions with their televisions. In this manner, AFN-TV often shared shows, including The Big Picture, with host-nation citizens and had an opportunity to shape and influence understandings of American culture and society.

The Pacific edition of the Stars and Stripes reveals that The Big Picture enjoyed a similar experience in that theater. A July 1962 printing carried an AFKN (American Forces Korea Network) television schedule that listed the show in 7:00 p.m. and 7:05 p.m. time slots on the two available channels. Through the mid-1960s the US military’s Far East Network (FEN) TV channels in Japan offered the military communities there showings of The Big Picture on Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m. A survey of television listings for AFKN, FEN, and AFN shows that those networks continued to air episodes, although at a lesser frequency, through the 1970s and into the 1980s, at least until 1983. As American involvement in Vietnam deepened, so too did the availability of television entertainment for service members stationed throughout the country. By early 1967, the American Forces Vietnam Television (AFVN-TV) began airing episodes of The Big Picture from their signal tower in Saigon. From there, it continued to spread. For example, a 1970 edition of the Pacific Stars and Stripes reveals that The Big Picture was airing at Nha Trang on Tuesdays at 6:00 p.m. and Thursdays at 8:00 p.m., at Pleiku on Tuesdays at 4:30 p.m., and at Da Nang on Tuesdays at 4:30 p.m. On the schedule for Da Nang, it was nestled between Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and the sitcom Get Smart, both very popular back in the States. Given the situation in Vietnam however, the Big Picture was not in competition with these two shows so it could enjoy a certain privilege that was absent when it jousted for prime-time slotting on the major networks back home a decade earlier. During the years that The Big Picture appeared on television sets overseas, in homes and barracks, millions of service members and civilian government employees and their families who rotated through these assignments watched the APC production and gained exposure to the narratives and messages of the well-crafted series. It provided information, training, and, through a number of episodes, a touch of home.

Ideas for episodes came from a variety of sources. Occasionally, regional IOs would forward their own thoughts, or suggestions submitted to them by various units or individuals stationed abroad or in the United States. In one instance, a set of “story topics concerning United States Army Europe” arrived in a letter from the deputy chief, Information Division, USAREUR, to the chief of public information, OCINFO, with a note that “these story ideas are for your consideration for Big Picture or other outlets.”¹⁶⁸ An additional comment that “USAREUR is providing a lion’s share of ‘Big Picture’ footage [to the APC] but we feel we have only scratched the surface” hinted at some level of competition among units and commands to gain exposure and recognition in Big Picture productions.¹⁶⁹ Several months later, another recommendation arrived from the USAREUR Information Division suggesting the creation of an episode titled “Pentomic Seventh Army.” An archived memo reflects the eager acceptance by the chief, PID, and production began after some preliminary script work.¹⁷⁰ It eventually aired as episode TV-421, under the same title. Suggestions also included historical subjects. After viewing the episode on “The History of Cavalry” (TV-382), the chief of the Armor Section, US Continental Army, recommended the development of a show on the “History of the Armor.”¹⁷¹ Reacting quickly, the APC produced it as “Armored Combat Power” (TV-389). The archives reveal a large number of letters and memos proposing topics for episodes from a variety of sources. This suggests an interesting relationship between service personnel and units, who saw in the television series an opportunity to feel as if they were participants in telling a story or crafting a narrative about the army or an aspect of military history, and the production itself. In this context, a link of common purpose emerged between the soldier and The Big Picture.

The Big Picture series developed from a need to tell a story about the American army’s involvement in the Korean War. With the rapid evolution of communications technology, the military leadership realized the advantage television provided as a platform to deliver a variety of messages. For two decades The Big Picture would serve as a vessel to reach into American homes, as well as public and political spaces, to make important connections and shape thinking about the role of the army in the early Cold War period, its modernization trends, its history, and the lives of service members.